I Know Nothing About Anime, But Dragonball Evolution Is The Worst Adaptation Ever

By Robert Scucci
| Published 17 seconds ago

Over the years, I’ve changed my stance on whether movie adaptations need to remain materially faithful to their source, and generally speaking, I’m all about filmmakers taking creative liberties. Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining is a prime example because it’s a bona fide horror classic, and it doesn’t necessarily take away from your enjoyment of Stephen King’s novel. You can read the book and enjoy it for what it is, and then appreciate Kubrick’s vision in bringing the story, inspired by King, to life through a visual medium, complete with his own artistic signature on it.

I think this is how it should be. Nobody wants to hear a cover song that sounds exactly like the original. When done right, you get to enjoy two different versions of the same thing. In most cases, I see no downside.

At least, I felt this way before watching 2009’s Dragonball Evolution.

I need to come 100 percent clean here and admit that not only do I know nothing about the Dragon Ball series, I don’t really know anything about manga or anime in general. Here’s why that matters. When an intellectual property with a legacy as far-reaching as Dragon Ball gets adapted into a film, it’s insane to think that decades of lore could fit into a single feature-length movie. No reasonable person should expect that.

But it should represent the source material in an appealing enough way to leave curious viewers like myself asking for more. After sitting through Dragonball Evolution on a dare, I can safely assert that this film did not accomplish that.

Let’s Just Evaluate This Dumpster Fire At Face Value

Going into Dragonball Evolution with zero expectations other than “you’re going to laugh your ass off at how bad this is,” I had an open mind. It’s rated PG, so clearly mass appeal was a priority, meaning I wasn’t expecting anything ultra-violent or any particularly dark imagery. I was maybe expecting a family-friendly adaptation of a beloved franchise that could serve as a solid entry point for casual viewers. At the very least, if done well, it could have been a competent stand-alone film that taps into Dragon Ball canon without overwhelming somebody like me, who doesn’t want to absorb entire universes just to enjoy a single piece of media.

Instead, we get Goku (Justin Chatwin), who looks and acts like a cross between the “Dude, You’re Getting a Dell!” guy and Jessie Pinkman from Breaking Bad. Not Aaron Paul, the actor. Jessie Pinkman specifically. He’s a reluctant hero who trains under the guidance of his grandfather, Gohan (Randall Duk Kim). On his 18th birthday, he’s given a Dragonball with four gold stars in it and told that there are six others just like it, each with a corresponding number of stars. What Goku and Gohan don’t know, however, is that the Namekian Demon King Piccolo (James Marsters), with the help of his loyal henchwoman Mai (Eriko Tamura), is hellbent on collecting all seven Dragonballs and willing to kill everybody in his path to get them.

Goku has a crush on Chi-Chi (Jamie Chung) and stares at her for awkwardly long stretches in class before accidentally revealing his powers to her while she’s trying to open her locker. It’s implied that he has powers he can’t display in public. He’s also a pretty well-trained fighter, but apparently can’t do that in public either. To illustrate this point, Goku gets into a “fight” at Chi-Chi’s party that mostly involves him cleverly dodging his bullies so they inadvertently beat themselves up. I could get that from any Steven Seagal movie and walk away from it way more entertained.

Anyway, Piccolo kills Gohan, and Goku very flatly says, “I will avenge you,” before setting out to find Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat), who trained his grandfather but needs to be brought up to speed on Piccolo’s antics. From this point on, Goku becomes acquainted with ninja garb that looks like a Scorpion costume you’d find in the Spirit Halloween bargain bin. Dragonballs are located thanks to Bulma (Emmy Rossum), who, when we first meet her, claims to have no idea what a Dragonball is, but seconds later reveals that she has a custom-made device specifically designed to track them that she had been developing for years.

Goku goes “Gahhh!” but it sounds more like my 5-year-old when he’s pretending to be angry and stomping on his block towers.

I Don’t Know Who This Is For

We now know that live-action anime adaptations can capture the minds, hearts, and imaginations of the masses. Most recently, One Piece made waves on Netflix while staying faithful to the source material in a way that’s not intimidating to newcomers who are just looking to get their feet wet. It’s not an unattainable goal by any stretch of the imagination, and if the right talent puts the right amount of care into a project, you should expect nothing less.

Dragonball Evolution offers nothing to latch onto. It doesn’t matter if you’re a diehard fan going into it, and it doesn’t matter if you know nothing about Dragon Ball. It’s a stand-alone movie, and there was plenty of fertile ground to sift through in search of a meaningful story and a hero’s arc I’d actually care about. For a movie that reportedly cost around $30 million to make, you’d expect somebody close to the original IP to be on the payroll making sure its legacy stayed intact.

Ironically, series creator Akira Toriyama was brought on as a creative consultant, but much of his input was reportedly ignored. It’s a double-edged sword because the short-term loss was that director James Wong and company took a chainsaw to his pride and joy. The flip side is that the movie was so poorly received that Toriyama’s interest in the franchise was rekindled, eventually leading to his involvement in later projects like Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super.

While I freely admit that I’m the last person you should ask about Dragonball Evolution’s merits as an anime adaptation, I am a movie fan, and I can tell you there are no redeeming qualities here. It feels like the Dragonball name was tacked onto a lackluster script, and the studio thought that would be enough to launch a cinematic universe that could compete with the MCU. Instead, we’re left with Justin Chatwin publicly apologizing for starring in the film because he knows what he did.

As of this writing, Dragonball Evolution can be rented or purchased on demand through YouTube, Fandango at Home, and Amazon Prime Video.

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