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 Add
this one to the “How’d this ever get made?” file, and you can CC the
“How did this ever get released in theatres?” shelf. Much negative
speculation about the live-action Dragonball movie began before a single
frame was filmed and I regret to inform that all the hate was completely
justified.
What in the blue heck (-
struggling to keep it clean for the youngsters) was Fox
thinking when they released this monstrosity of the most famous Japanese
anime series ever made and devolved ( - no pun intended) it into
this incomprehensible dreck that has nothing at all to recommend it.
How do you make Dragonball into a flat, boring dross? Well, let me
count the ways: 1) Take away the one thing that made your hero special
and dumb him down as much as you can. Son Goku, the mainstay of all
things Dragonball, is an alien born of an über-violent race of warriors
who was exiled to earth as an infant because he wasn’t measured to be as
tough as his peers. This movie’s Goku is nothing but some kid who’s
really talented at Kung Fu, nothing more. Blah. 2) Age your hero and
pattern him after every high-school cliché ever filmed. Unlike the
start of Dragonball, where Goku is a young child fending for himself in
the mountains, this Goku is a teenager and as with every textbook teen
drama, a lonely nerd, picked on by the cool bullies. The story then
tries to add some Disney-wholesome romance between our boy with the
unfathomably spikey hair and the alluring Chi-Chi, also a Kung Fu
prodigy (- just don’t tell her father). 3) Make your villain -
one of the most memorable in the anime pantheon - a brooding Emo wuss.
That would be Piccolo; in some misguided attempt to get us to take him
more seriously, his antennae have been squashed on either side of his
head and his origin completely rewritten. 4) Create the worst special
effects seen outside of an Ed Wood film. Really, whoever approved the
CGI on this movie should have their licenses taken away. The team who
created the were-ape Oozaru should be dragged out and shot … with
spitballs (- remember, keeping it clean). The Japanese King Kong
from 1962 looked like a masterpiece of realism compared to this patchy,
rubbery mess.
Dragonball has done the
impossible and made me angry with Chow Yun-Fat. His choices in Western
projects haven’t been particularly inspired, but this is a new low.
Trying bloody hard to look like he’s having fun playing a neutered,
watered-down version of the perverted sifu, Master Roshi, Chow only
succeeds in looking ridiculous and not in the way he’s meant to as the
comedic character. Chow, I need to sit you down for my
Lucy Liu career
talk. Maybe because of Chow’s Hong Kong cred, the action in the last
act of the film centers more around Roshi, who gives up training Goku
(!!!) ostensibly because the Goku team is out of time before Piccolo
destroys the world. Instead, Roshi plots with some random Buddhist
monks to contrive something in a jar (- Where’s my rice cooker?)
to entrap Piccolo. Okay, you’ve taken the focus totally off the alleged
lead character. Then again, outside of wide eyes, a square jaw and an
amenable disposition, this Goku isn’t all that interesting.
The filmmakers made the alien
invader originally sent to destroy earth into an average teenage boy and
that decision is a loopy fiasco. Goku is normal to the point of being
inane and totally uninteresting. He has none of the goofy, fish out of
water charm and humour that turns to scary intensity in the face of a
battle. I blame the writers for gelding this great character instead of
Justin Chatwin, the unlucky actor given the thankless millstone of
playing him. Even if the intent had been to lure young children into
the movie theatres, what little kid is going to watch some soggy teenage
romance? If Goku’s story began with him as a child, then at least the
younger audience members could have identified with him. Anyone who’s
ever seen Goku’s first friend, Dragonball hunter Bulma, knows her bright
blue hair is a trademark in the anime; apparently director Justin Wong
vetoed such tonsorial splendour in favour of Emmy Rossum sporting a
Claire’s Accessory clip-on. Goku’s own famous stuck-out-at-all-angles
hairdo looks more like the result of too much tacky hair gel and even
his Turtle Hermit uniform looks like inaccurate cosplay. We get one –
count ‘em - one measly, unimpressive Kamehameha wave out of Goku and you
couldn’t care less when it finally happens. For some reason, Master
Roshi keeps going on about air-bending for the five minutes we see him
training Goku, which was never mentioned in the Dragonball show, but is
a big deal for another Asian-esque animated series called Avatar: The
Last Airbender, also soon to be a major live-action motion picture.
Did the writers have no faith in Akira Toriyama’s unbelievably popular
original storyline that they had to borrow from another show? The one
thing they got right was Bulma’s capsule turning into a sweet-looking
ride for she and Goku, but even that looked like a Transformers outtake.
Seemingly, Wong was desperate to take all the magic out of the series
and make it more earthbound and realistic. What a crock.
It’s not fair to lose the
lovely Eriko Tamura in the list of horrors; Tamura’s the only one who
seemed to have a proper grasp on her character, Piccolo’s alluring,
catsuited evil henchman, Mai. Of course, because it is this
picture and it’s a disaster, all the humour so present in the anime has
been completely drained out of the bumbling villain. I can’t even talk
about the misuse of Spike from Buffy {James Marsters} without my
hair glowing yellow and standing up. As the leaden, moping Piccolo,
Marsters seems to be practicing for the lead in Hamlet rather than
having any scenery-chewing fun under the greenface and prosthetics. I
can’t really blame Marsters; if I was stuck in this trash, I’d be
depressed too.
20th Century Fox
has tried to absolve itself of this disgrace by limited (- re:
nonexistent) advertising and writing it off as a children’s film.
If that’s so, this movie should be considered child abuse; surely
lowering the IQ’s of movie-going kids is legally actionable. I pity the
child easily amused enough to appreciate anything other than the loud
noises generated by the terribly rendered and awfully infrequent battle
scenes. What a waste of a great anime. Everybody involved with this
catastrophe should be put on the receiving end of an Ultimate Kamehameha
wave.
~ The Lady Miz Diva
April 12th 2008
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