[Rating: 4.5/10]

Genre: Action, Fantasy

For his eighteenth birday, Goku’s grandfather gives him a mystical object known as a dragon ball. When Piccolo, an evil alien from outerspace invades the earth, Goku finds himself on a quest to reunite all seven dragon balls in existance, for it is only their combined power that can defeat Piccolo and save humanity.

Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward, nothing to burst a braincell for, and I can here the fans of the original anime and manga series crying out injustice! However, we must keep in mind that it is a Hollywood re-make of a Japanese anime, placed in a futuristic sort of American setting, not some bygone era of Japan, and it was condensed for the early teen crowd, possibly for viewers even younger, so looking at it from that point of view, it was actually pretty decent. Not fantabulous but alright for something that is targeted to a certain group of people. And before anyone starts bashing me for even daring to call it decent, my decent means borderline, or close to just passing. It is not meant to be an adaptation for a more mature audience, such as The Ring or Ju-On: The Grudge. This is like Americanizing Power Rangers (which if you didn’t know, was actually a Japanese series), except Power Rangers got the airtime for a whole series and more, whereas Dragon Ball Evolution got a movie of a little more than an hour and a half. The storyline of DBE is simple and straightforward, alot of the ‘awe’ factor is reliant on fast happening action sequences and special effects. I do have to admit Emmy Rossum did much better as Bulma than her wide-eyed doey role in The Phantom of the Opera. Her bike was very spiffy. How convienient would it be to have automobiles that could fit into your pocket? No need to worry about parking and exorbidant fees that come with parking. One of my main gripe was that they could have extended the movie a little longer. The final battlescene was extremely anticlimatic, lasting too short to take in, after all that build-up you’d expected the showdown to be a few minutes longer, and more specular. And the cut-scene at the end? Does that mean there’s a sequel? I doubt I’d be willing to pay another $10 (thank god for discounts) to watch the next show. I wish they’d understand that one show by itself is good enough, but they want the money so it can’t be helped. No point complaining about it. Just don’t watch it if you don’t want to, that’s all. Next grip is the script. The script is one of the most cliche and uninteresting scripts I’ve ever come across. Even though I’ve never seen the actual Dragon Ball anime, I’m sure it would be wittier than that (but it is a kid’s anime, so…)… but this just redefined overused, with a capital ‘O’. It could be a script for ‘Superhero movie’ for all I know (like Date Movie and Scary Movie). Honestly, even if I was a kid I’d not have thought much of it. Sure it was at least somewhat entertaining and it had some nice effects but that was about it. And Chi Chi? Pretty girl but Extra much?