Dragonball Evolution

The idea of a live-action Hollywood take on Dragonball, Japan's long-running martial arts manga series, is made infinitely more appealing with Stephen Chow's name on the producer credits. Could the filmmaker behind Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle give this campy high school action adventure his special touch? Unfortunately, the answer is no. It's difficult to see how anyone over 10 years old could watch this without their brain rotting. The story follows Goku (Justin Chatwin), a thoughtful but lonely boy who is picked on at school for falling for a girl who barely notices him. Little do his classmates know that he is a kung fu whizz who has sworn an oath not to fight others. On his 18th birthday, Goku is given a glowing red dragonball by his grandfather, but the power-hungry alien warlord Piccolo (James Marsters) intervenes, levelling their home and killing the old man. Goku learns that Piccolo intends to summon an earth-destroying dragon by uniting all seven of the balls. Suddenly, Goku must use his powers to find each dragonball and convince its owner not to side with Piccolo. The film's flaws are too numerous to cover. Chatwin is hugely uncharismatic as a lead actor - and he has incredibly annoying hair. All of the performances are poor, including Chow Yun-Fat's turn as a kind of hammy, washed-up Obi-Wan Kenobi. Somehow, this adaptation of one of Japan's most original and influential stories comes across as derivative and nonsensical. The dialogue actually includes the line "you've been trained well" and the computer-generated imagery looks cartoonish. Worst of all, the fight scenes for which the series became famous are massively underwhelming. Despite all this, somehow, Dragonball Evolution is actually too stupid to hate.

Dragonball Evolution, an adaptation of Japan's long-running martial arts magna series, is nonsensical, cartoonish and massively underwhelming.