The movie, while not grossing nearly as much as some of the other films nominated (Watchmen, Wolverine), still managed to somehow get nominated for an award with “Best” in the title.  To vote for the film (if you really, really want to) you can do so over at Spike’s website. You can also discuss this over on our forum.

Despite the poor reception of the film around the world it appears that the movie actually was successful earning double it’s production cost from the global box office and it’s DVD revenue.

Source: Anime Nation

After the U.S. producers experienced a major failure with the signing of Dragon Ball: Evolution, we get information from our correspondents in Miami that Dragon Ball will be restarted and not only that, but also confirmed a forthcoming trilogy.

Such confirmation said the spokesman for 20th Century Fox, Abraham Sullivan:

“If we have another movie (Dragon Ball), we are currently discussing the resumption of the trilogy” Sullivan said our correspondent.

“The only problems we have are the scripts are not finished yet and will be reviewed by our executives, as well as walk in the search for a new director to make such delivery” said the spokesman for the Fox.

If a reboot is in the works I certainly hope it’s not for at least another 5 years.  DBE failed so bad that the series probably has quite a bad taste in peoples mouths.  This definitely wouldn’t be the time to come out with another.   We just have to hope if it happens that Fox gets it right this time.

Discuss on the Forums.

Whether or not Marsters’ word should be taken as gospel remains to be seen. Following the film’s disappointing box office performance and woeful response from both critics and Dragonball fans, prospects for a sequel seemed somewhat dubious. However, considering that Dragonball: Evolution grossed $56 million against a $45 million budget, it was technically profitable. Moreover, the ending of the film strongly hinted at a follow-up, and the promptness of its announcement in this manner may well clear up the confusion surrounding the film’s budget. When the project was announced late in 2007, it came with the promise of a $100 million budget. Closer to release though, this figure mysteriously disappeared to be relaced with a claim to $45 to $50 million; a sequel may well explain where the other half of the original sum was spirited away. Indeed, the very fact that Marsters is able to announce a sequel less than two months after the film’s opening suggests that a sequel was planned from the offset.

It may still be early to say whether Marsters’ claim carries weight. Maybe it’s legitimate, or maybe it’s a subtle bit of last-minute viral marketing to rejuvenate fan interest in a box-office failure. But if a sequel does end up getting made, the main question may well be whether the fans disappointed by Dragonball: Evolution will be willing to give James Wong and co. a second chance. Get militant, or forgive and forget?

Discuss further on our ever-lovin’ Forums

Sad news for Czech fans of James, PR manager of Bonton Film.cz, the Czech distribution company of Dragonball Evolution confirmed me that Dragonball Evolution was drop out from the distributing schedule and will come out only on DVD. Unfortunately I was kinda expecting this and it looks like we are not the only country who lost the theatrical release, I can’t find it in Slovakia, Denmark and Finland at the moment. According to the most recent info on variety.com the movie has earned more then $50 mill. worldwide.

So if you live in any of those countries then it looks like you’ll have to wait a few months before you can watch the film.  A legal version of it anyway.

Discuss on the forums.

Via: Box Office Mojo
1 Hannah Montana The Movie BV $34,000,000
2 Fast and Furious Uni. $28,783,000
3 Monsters Vs. Aliens P/DW $22,617,000
4 Observe and Report WB $11,140,000
5 Knowing Sum. $6,670,000
6 I Love You, Man P/DW $6,412,000
7 The Haunting in Connecticut LGF $5,710,000
8 Dragonball Evolution Fox $4,650,000
9 Adventureland Mira. $3,433,000
10 Duplicity Uni. $2,997,000

This doesn’t bode well for anyone hoping to see a sequel to the movie, as Dragonball even falls below the opening weekend box office of the other recent LAA from Fox, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, which had a slightly better $4.7 million opening weekend and was released in a little over 1000 theaters less than Dragonball: Evolution was.

Of course there is still a little time to catch up. This article is posted Sunday night, so perhaps there will be rush to the theater and Dragonball will make the extra $71,000 it needs to beat Chun Li. Unfortunately it won’t change it’s spot as it’s not likely it’ll make enough to move up any.

Tune in soon for the next LAA podcast that will be dedicated to talking about Dragonball: Evolution.  It’ll be an episode you won’t wanna miss!!

Discuss on our Forums!

By the way I found this video on youtube.  To me I look at it and it seems to be a good metaphor for Dragonball: Evolution’s journey to theaters. Of course this is just my opinion. By the way don’t subscribe to that person’s account. They ask you too at the end, but just because I’m not a nice person I say don’t do it.

UPDATE: Opening weekend totals brought in $4,756,488. Bringing up World Wide to $30,071,834

The next review is by Global Moderator, Luna:

Cast and crew interviews include producer Tim Van Rellin, Chow Yun Fat, costume designer Mayes Rubeo, props master Colin Thurston, Emmy Rossum, Eriko Tamura, Joon Park, and James Marsters.  A lot of interesting stuff in these interviews including some talk about why Goku’s tail isn’t included, Bulma’s hair, more insight on Yamcha’s character and much more.  Click the link above to check it all out.  To discuss, head on over to our forums, and let us know what YOU think about the DragonBall movie!

Check it out here.

Dragonball: Evolution opens in U.S. theaters nation wide today.

Discuss on the forums

Dragonball Evolution

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s upon us at last. After years of doubt, of deliberation, of debate and dissent, the long-awaited live-action adaptation of the Dragonball franchise, Dragonball Evolution, is here. It hit cinemas in the UK today, and will be in America by Friday. To say that this release is a milestone in the history of this website is a gross understatement; on one level, it represents the final fulfilment of its purpose.

Permit me a moment of reminiscence. I first joined LAA in 2004; not quite since its inception, but long enough to have borne witness to most of its lifetime, and my story with relation to my time here is one many of our veteran members share. When I first joined I was a hardcore Dragonball fan, allured by the possibility of seeing my favourite franchise on the big screen. As time passed, I began to lose hope of ever seeing the movie come to be, and I also (mostly) grew out of Dragonball, deeming it a fond childhood memory.

But even after leaving my original reasons for joining behind, my ties to LAA only continued to grow stronger, it having become my online home-away-from-home. So when, like a bolt out of the blue, Dragonball Evolution was officially announced, seeing it was no longer about seeing the characters I once adored in live-action: it had become a matter of symbolic significance, of duty to this site, and it thusly took on an unprecedented significance. After all, it had – however inadvertently – made a major impact on my life, and those of many others here. It’s not just a movie anymore. With this review, I draw the logical conclusion to these five years of allegiance.

Of course, all of this is just background, but it’s important to impress upon you, dear readers, the status this movie occupies in the minds of myself and the membership of LAA. Also, it’s important for us to retain a degree of perspective which we may have lost over the years. In spite of all of the build-up, of all the anticipation, does that make this movie in any way exceptional? Or even necessarily good? Of course not; it represents the end of the same production process that any big-studio American movie goes through, and we have to keep that in mind. So here I am; fresh from the cinema and in front of my laptop, having made a point of carefully assessing Dragonball Evolution from a standpoint independent from all of my expectations, all of my reservations, and all of the fervour built up amongst fans. And with that in mind I came to the conclusion:

It was pretty crap.

Yes, unfortunately it seems that a lot of the predictions espoused by vitriolic fanboys have come to pass. Unlike many of my more – shall we say – zealous peers, I have no problem with the liberties taken by writer Ben Ramsey and director James Wong with the finer points of Dragonball’s story. Fidelity to source material isn’t always a good thing, and when taken to extremes it can result in a work being sterile and bereft of genuine creative enterprise (just look at last month’s Watchmen adaptation). My gripe is that the product they’ve come up with in its stead is beset by issues on several levels, be it structural, technical, or aesthetic. Dragonball Evolution does make an appreciable effort to take the premise of the Dragonball franchise new places, but it comes across as rushed and suffering from a multitude of poor directorial and editorial decisions. For every good idea it comes up with, there’s one, if not several aspects of its execution which are flawed, resulting in a film which is basically a mess.

The story then, for those just now joining us. Son Goku (played by Justin Chatwin) is a teenager living on an isolated farmstead with his grandfather Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) who trains him in martial arts and the manipulation of “ki” energy. On his 18th birthday, Gohan gives Goku the four-star Dragonball, one of seven which, when brought together (as any Dragonball fan is well aware), grants the holder a single wish. In spite of his fighting prowess, Goku is a laughing stock at high school (for no particular reason beyond that he’s a bumpkin, it seems), and is too timid to make his romantic feelings for his fellow student Chi-Chi (Jamie Chung) known. When circumstances lead to him being invited to a party thrown by Chi-Chi, he leaps at the opportunity, and as such he’s absent when, that same night, his grandfather is murdered. In his dying breaths, Gohan tells Goku that his murderer was the Lord Piccolo (James Marsters), a demon freed from a 2000-year imprisonment and generally pissed off at the world. He tells Goku to seek out Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) and to find the seven Dragonballs before Piccolo, who intends to use them to… um… I’m not sure, it wasn’t really made very clear. Something to do with his servant, Oozaru the Destroyer I think.

And that’s the first, worst and most obvious of Dragonball Evolution’s problems. The script, a rushed job hit by the writer’s strike like a battering ram, is an almost unmitigated disaster, pockmarked with plotholes like meteoric craters. Quite apart from a few instances of groan-worthy dialogue (one personal favourite is Roshi’s “Don’t let Oozaru destroy the Goku inside you”, which has since become a source of inspiration for the members of the podcast – watch this space), the pacing is – to put it bluntly – fucked. Running at a paltry 84 minutes, the plot races past too fast for the viewer to register. Plot points are introduced and then promptly abandoned (about halfway through, we see Piccolo create the Fulum Assassins from his own blood. These creatures are present for one fight scene, and then are never mentioned again), and vital narrative developments seem to occur off screen (at one point Roshi informs Goku that they have seven days to obtain the Dragonballs before the eclipse. Fifteen minutes later, they only have two days left, leaving the viewer to wonder at where exactly those five intermittent days went).

It gets to the point where the viewer is witnessing the final battle scene and trying to fathom where it came from; by all accounts, the movie seems to have only just started. On top of that, character development virtually abandons causality, with characters’ motivations being accounted for in a line or two of dialogue, and their personalities changing drastically between scenes with no indication of or emphasis upon the events which prompted these changes: one particularly egregious example is the romance which seems to spontaneously flower between scientist-warrior-girl Bulma (Emmy Rossum) and the desert bandit Yamcha (Joon-Park) when all the latter has done for the former is trap her in a concealed pit and threaten to steal her bike.

Director James Wong can’t exactly be absolved from blame either. Frequently he dwells on long, flamboyant action sequences and hurries the character interactions along when such scenes would clearly benefit from being extrapolated and giving the actors more opportunity to act. Furthermore, he peppers the film almost cyclically with “meaningful” moments (you know the kind, where the ubiquitous string quartet swells in the background and a character gets to look/say something pseudo-profound) in a manner so formulaic that it occurs as false and artificial, and he applies superfluous touches of special effects at sporadic intervals. Why do we need to watch a sweat droplet from Justin Chatwin’s nose hit the sand below him in super-slow motion? If you can figure it out, you’re considerably smarter than me.

I’ll admit, I did enjoy the look of the film at points, with tastefully deployed mise-en-scene that avoids the excess of Casshern or Speed Racer, accentuating the vividly imagined landscapes like deserts and futuristic cities, the real showstopper being the Dragon Temple, a cluster of gigantic rock pillars rising out of the earth in the film’s finale. This enjoyment is undermined however, by the fact that these environments seem to have no bearing on one another, the transitions from one to the next being sudden and jarring. Between two scenes, the characters seem to transport themselves from a desert landscape to the slopes of an active volcano with no indication of where one is in relation to the other or how they got there; there isn’t even a shot showing their approach. But then again, we’re not really sure what sort of alternate take on the planet Earth this is, are we? Damn you, Ben Ramsey.

Similarly, the fight choreography was often quite impressive. The actors demonstrate quite considerable athleticism and physicality, and have obviously trained hard for their roles. Anyone expecting a lot of lightweight wire-fu can rest easy; people look like they’re getting hit, and hit hard. However, once again James Wong’s direction creeps up and bites the film on the arse, with several of the biggest set pieces – including the big finale battle between Goku and Piccolo – being undermined by a style too frenetic to bring out the full extent of the characters’ grace. The worst offender by far is the fight with the Fulum Assassins, which combines too-close shots, too-fast edits and a too-dark colour palette to create a scene where it’s impossible to tell what’s going on. I knew beforehand that the Fulum Assassins were supposed to regenerate as two whenever one was killed, but I can’t imagine anyone watching that scene for the first time could figure that out.

The special effects were generally passable. The highlights were mostly to be found in the little whimsical touches, such as Bulma’s motorbike emerging, Transformers style from a capsule, and witnessing Jamie Chung’s Chi-Chi metamorphose herself into Piccolo’s henchwoman Mai. I’m not entirely sold on the notion of making ki-energy look like a particle effect, like colourful streams of water-vapour – it looks kind of wispy, not conveying the sense of power of the anime’s dense, solid beams of pure light – but from an impartial perspective, I guess it looks pretty cool. My problem with the effects is essentially their lack of scale. Dragonball saw entire cities and mountains being levelled, and although the final battle does see Goku and Piccolo knock down a couple of rock walls with each other’s heads, it doesn’t exactly evoke the sense of apocalyptic proportions I expect from Dragonball. You can imagine how ripped off I felt when I realised that the big set piece from the trailer of Piccolo annihilating a city, Terminator 2 style, was in fact just one of a series of sped-up images which flash past in one of Goku’s hallucinations. The Oozaru when it appears looks pretty impressive, but when Shenlong is summoned at the very end, I defy you not to laugh. He looks like a reject from the cast of Dragon Wars.

The performances could charitably be described as a mixed bag. At the centre of the cast we have Justin Chatwin, and while I know that most of the staff disagree with me on this point, I thought from the offset that he was miscast as Goku. He’s a perfectly capable actor, but he has a timid, quiet presence, lacking the spontaneity, the equilibrium between idiocy and badassery which define Goku’s character. Whenever he gets a line which demands assertiveness, he just ends up coming across as pouting. By contrast, I found Emmy Rossum’s Bulma to be the most engaging performance in the film, she giving enough credibility to the role of the impassioned action girl for the viewer to overlook the fact that she’s almost completely superfluous as a character (seriously, she’s really only in the film to introduce the Dragonball locater as a plot device. Again, damn you Ben Ramsey). I’m pleased to say that Jamie Chung was nowhere near as bad as Chi-Chi as I’d feared. She occurs as an airhead, sure, but she has chemistry with Chatwin and is endearing as a love interest.

Chow Yun-Fat’s performance can be summed up thusly: scenery gets chewed. Lots of it. That’s fine, you know? He’s Chow Yun-Fat, it’s what he does. The problem is, Yun-Fat’s volatile, explosive personality has never lent itself particularly well to light, comedic roles. In roles like those he filled in John Woo’s old heroic bloodshed epics, he was impossibly intense, but whenever he’s demanded to be funny, he just occurs as a caricature of himself. This is chronically true of the actor and not really a problem with the film itself, but there it is. I can’t help but feel that the role of Master Roshi, the funny, perverted old sage would have been better filled, ironically, by Randall Duk Kim, who’s a charming likable presence as Gohan for the fifteen or so minutes he’s alive. James Marsters does what he can with the role of Piccolo, giving him an imposing, Vader-esque presence, but considering he only gets about ten minutes of screen time and about a dozen lines, he’s still a far cry from the beloved King Piccolo we know from the anime. However, the only performance I can identify as singularly horrible is Joon-Park’s Yamcha, the South Korean star who feels the need to inflect every one of his (admittedly already awful) lines with a grotesquely exaggerated, faux-American “coolness”. It hurts to watch enough that you’re glad he doesn’t get much screen time.

For the most part, Dragonball Evolution is a train wreck. I like to think its intentions are noble, and there were parts of it that I enjoyed, so it isn’t quite a total loss. Nevertheless, all of its aspects occur as rushed, faulty, uncomfortable in their execution and frustratingly minimal in scope and scale. It’s a timid, lightweight, small version of Dragonball that cries out for expansion. I know that a 100-minute version is supposedly going to be shown in the US, but as it stands I’m doubtful how much difference 15 minutes could make. Ideally, this film should be at least two hours long. In spite of a few redeeming performances and nifty set-pieces, I can’t honestly say I emerged entertained. In a way, the nicest thing I can say about this film is that I think it has potential to make for a good franchise; it’s tempting to allocate the faults of this first instalment to a combination of origin-story woes and unfortunate circumstances for the scriptwriting. With a more adequately-proportioned and better-written script and a cast more comfortable in their roles, it would be interesting to see where Wong and co. would take this world that they’ve created. As it stands, Dragonball Evolution feels like a prologue to something larger (and indeed, a post-credits sequence reveals that it was definitely made with sequels in mind).

As for LAA, it’s unfortunate that this site’s original purpose should find fulfilment in such an ultimately unfulfilling movie. I suppose there’s a moral of sorts in finding that the object we’d allowed to grow to mythical status in our minds turns out to be a tangible and fallible as anything else. But on another level, there’s a very profound satisfaction to be gleaned from finding a purpose completed, of seeing a six-year cycle resolve itself so absolutely. In spite of itself, Dragonball Evolution created something incredible in this site, and in that much we owe it a debt of thanks. Presently however, the sad truth is that it’s just not a very good film, and one that I couldn’t honestly recommend.

But hey: it’s still better than Dragonball GT.

Thrasher’s Rating: *½

Rating System:

* – Horrible
*1/2 – Very Bad
** – Bad
**1/2 – Good
*** – Very Good
***1/2 – Excellent
**** – Masterpiece

If you have any feedback, criticism or questions relating to this review or any other, please e-mail me at The_Thrashers_Word@hotmail.com