DragonBall: Evolution (2009)
The only star I recognized in this entire film prior to watching it was Chow Yun Fat as Master Roshi. This was a weird casting decision because I love Fat, but he looks too young (even though he's like 50) to play Roshi. I can say that he was the best part of this film because he had a certain likability to him that I was fond of. Unfortunately, the script (which I don't want to think about) was atrocious and let him down immensely. Then, let's move on to our Son-Goku. Mr. Justin Chatwin. I hate this guy. Every line he delivers is bland. This guy also doesn't understand Goku's character and plays him like an emo. Every look he gives makes me want to cut myself. It doesn't help that he can't drop a tear at all. Also, his "Kamehameha" deliver is laughable at best. Much better than the nerds who attempt it in real life, but still weak.
Guess what he's doing there? Hint: It's not a Kamehameha.
Everything seemed rushed in the movie and characters would just pop out of nowhere and decide to join together to beat Piccolo. The love angle in the story seemed forced as well, everybody was simply out of character. Goku's a powerful but lame school boy, Chi Chi's a martial art school girl who can't even open her own locker, Master Roshi's some crazy dude living in the city (at least he still wears a Hawaiian shirt and seems a little perverted), Bulma became Lara Croft and Rambo combined in another body with a bizarre voice, Mai (originally one of Pilaf's hilarious henchmen in the manga) became a cold blooded, shape-shifting killer, Yamcha became a weird cross between a desert bandit who can't fight and a hobo with unwashed hair, and Piccolo became a weird vampire whose outfit seems to be inspired by the Matrix. I think only Grandpa Gohan was close enough to the original character, except for the way he exits the movie early on.
At some point of the movie, when Goku turns into a gorilla the visual effect was so poorly done that it looks some what like "Rubber Chicken". Did they slip in few shots done by stop motion? The face of Gozoru looks like it was done in After Effects, it doesn't look like 3D at all!! First scene of the film, Goku was training with Gohan, the matte painting of the house was so badly done that it looks 2D (cardboard stand) in the background. Blue / Green screen spill was all over, color correction sucks. Visual effect was done much like fresh grad student level. Hollywood have done so much super hero movies in the recent years, and I think the producers just hire the wrong bunch to do such a visual effects intensive film. I believe that Fox knew this film wouldn't go anywhere so they cut budget from hiring the good guys to work on this film!!!
As far as film-making and story-telling techniques go, you can see cliché after cliché being thrown at you, with the poorly and cheaply rendered special effects offering no consolation. Justin Chatwin's Goku is your typical teenager who possesses innate potential yet to be realized, and in his frustration he gets treated by peers as a loser geek. He lives with his grandpa Gohan (Randall Duk Kim in stereotypical know-it-all like in Kung Pu Panda), and develops a crush on school hottie Chi Chi (Jamie Chung). Goku's calling in life is to prevent an apocalypse from happening with the return of chief cardboard baddie Lord Piccolo (an instant shoo-in as one of the worst cinematic villains, ever!) and his temporary sidekick Mai (Eriko Tamura) who attempt to collect 7 dragonballs to fulfill an ancient myth. And of course Goku needs a Fellowship, in the form of irritating tech-wizard Bulma (Emmy Rossum last seen in the sinker Poseidon), mercenary Yum Cha (Joon Park who probably copied Rain's uninspiring cinematic turn in Speed Racer to a T) and as I mentioned above Chow Yun-Fat the biggest name of them all here trying his darnest best to act likable as Master Roshi, who imparts skills in double quick time to Goku.
If you want to have endless conversation with your friends about how bad this film is, then go watch it. I believe that Hollywood is running out of idea and beginning to tackle Asia stories. But studio got to have more faith in selling these stories with huge fans around the world: Dragonball, Akira and whatnot. If you cut back the budget, it will end up with a disaster like what James Wong did with this movie! Consider Matrix, Wachowski Bros did a total ripe off from a Japanese Animation "Ghost in the Shell". Look what they can achieve with the budget they've got. Of course, skills is also a factor and they have better vision than James as well.
I'm being ultra-generous with a
0.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment