Dragonball Evolution (2009)

All Critics (58) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (8) | Rotten (48) | DVD (3)

Evolution is far more entertaining than it deserves to be, unless you're a 10-year-old boy, in which case it's only the greatest movie ever made.

April 13, 2009 Full Review | Comments (34)

Aaron Hillis

Village Voice

Top Critic

There are a few entertaining fight scenes. But there is also uneven CGI, bad dialogue and a host of clichéd moments that make Dragonball Evolution just another disappointing matinee movie.

April 13, 2009 Full Review

Jennie Punter

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

Fans of the best-selling Dragonball comics (and cartoons, and videogames...) might have a shot at untangling the knotty dream-logic that strangles Dragonball: Evolution's live-action adaptation.

April 13, 2009 Full Review | Comments (4)

Adam Markovitz

Entertainment Weekly

Top Critic

The giddy, anything-goes spirit of Japanese manga comics and Hong Kong martial arts flicks animates Dragonball Evolution. Not enough to make it a good movie, mind you, but enough so you won't hate yourself if you sit through it with the kids.

April 13, 2009 Full Review | Comment (1)

Joel Brown

Boston Globe

Top Critic

A hyperactively messy little adventure fantasy in which movement is everything and meaning means nothing.

April 10, 2009 Full Review

Leigh Paatsch

New York Post

Top Critic

Making no effort to be original, exciting, witty or even vaguely plausible, it may pass the time as sparkly fodder for 12-year-old boys with plenty of sugar in their bloodstream.

April 9, 2009 Full Review

David Jenkins

Time Out

Top Critic

This film offers further proof, as if any were needed, that Western filmmakers cannot do justice to their Eastern counterparts when it comes to retooling anime and/or Fant-Asia for Occidental consumption.

September 24, 2009 Full Review | Comments (2)

Steve Biodrowski

Cinefantastique

More concerned with recruiting the testosterone troubled boys of today than it is rewarding fans of yesteryear.

August 2, 2009 Full Review

Anders Wotzke

Moviedex

As far as 2009 flops will go, [this] could have been much worse to sit through...

April 30, 2009 Full Review | Comment (1)

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

A contender for the worst movie of the year was released in April.

April 18, 2009 Full Review | Comments (16)

Linda Cook

Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

I am no expert in the field of Dragon Ball. However... the first live-action, English-language film in the franchise is absolutely insipid.

April 18, 2009 Full Review | Comment (1)

Tim Brayton

Antagony & Ecstasy

For anyone writing it off as a kiddie film, Dragonball: Evolution should be considered child abuse. Put everyone involved with this catastrophe on the receiving end of a Kamehameha wave.

April 18, 2009 Full Review | Comments (4)

Diva Velez

TheDivaReview.com

this first installment was actually entertaining enough that a sequel could work out the kinks to become a very solid franchise.

April 17, 2009 Full Review | Comments (12)

Jeffrey Lyles

Gazette (MD)

The story seems to have been made up as the film went along, and not by anyone talented. The fight scenes and special effects are shamefully pathetic.

April 17, 2009 Full Review

Christopher Tookey

Daily Mail [UK]

Faced with the choice of watching Dragonball: Evolution again and perishing in a fiery apocalypse, I'd take Judgment Day every time.

April 17, 2009 Full Review

David Edwards

Daily Mirror [UK]

A rather tame live-action sci-fi flick.

April 17, 2009 Full Review

Anthony Quinn

Independent

The producer, Stephen Chow, made the funny and original Kung Fu Hustle, but here he and director James Wong get into a terrible mess.

April 17, 2009 Full Review

This is London

Having been blandly adapted from a Chinese folklore-inspired Manga, that's about as much of the story that makes sense. Gibberish in the extreme, it has all the narrative cohesion of a trading card game.

April 17, 2009 Full Review | Comments (4)

Alistair Harkness

Scotsman

[Chow's] hamminess doesn't make Dragonball Evolution make more sense, but it's a great way to cope with an otherwise inexplicable kitschfest.

April 15, 2009 Full Review

Simon Abrams

New York Press

Dragonball's value -- such as it is -- is that it's too dumb to actively hate.

April 15, 2009 Full Review | Comments (3)

Ken Hanke

Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Poor Emmy Rossum went from "Phantom" to this. Now that's a career decline.

April 14, 2009 Full Review | Comment (1)

Jackie K. Cooper

jackiekcooper.com

just another dull teen action film

April 13, 2009 Full Review

Bill Gibron

Filmcritic.com

The film is crammed with treats for old-school Dragonball fans. For everyone else, this amounts to another seen-it-before, probably-willing-to-see-it-again distraction, a passable collection of 'splosions and special effects for a slow film weekend.

April 13, 2009 Full Review | Comments (8)

Tasha Robinson

AV Club

• 1. Goku: [Goku trashes Fuller and his gang] Oh, about your car... [Smashes the car]
  – Submitted by Lorenzo V (12 months ago)
• 1. Goku: Teach me how to be normal.
  2. Grandpa Gohan: Normal is also overrated.
  – Submitted by Lee V (15 months ago)
• 1. Bulma: You have no right to give away a third of the royalties to my invention. One day Dragonballs could power the world.
  2. Master Roshi: Don't worry. A third of zero is still zero.
  – Submitted by Geraldo G (16 months ago)
• 1. Grandpa Gohan: Always have faith in who you are.
  – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)
• 1. Master Roshi: In an ancient time, Earth was nearly destroyed. Not by man, but by Gods from the sky.
  – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)

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