"Seventeen anime films based on the Dragon Ball series have been released in Japan. The first three films were based on the original Dragon Ball anime series. The remaining films included thirteen Dragon Ball Z films and one tenth anniversary special (also based on the first anime series). However, the films are generally either alternate re-tellings of certain story arcs or extra side-stories that don't fit in with the same timeline as the series.From that films is this bad."

"I don't know where to begin, perhaps the beginning. While an avid fan of Dragonball, DBZ and by the sheer loyalty forced myself to watch GT; I don't think I have ever been quite dissapointed in a foreign adaptation before. I'm always hopeful since the days of Mortal Kombat, Excellent casting, fantastic personality interpretations and great adaptation of the game world. If only everyone could look back on those days and not rely so much on CGI and effects. Even DOA: dead or alive I like better than this movie. If for no other reason than the story was at least a tournament and the casting was done some what well. I even loved Speed Racer! for goodness sake, simply because it was just as bad and corny as the show. At least I respected these attepts to stick to the story line and while bad movies in all they were nowhere near the dissapointment level I felt for Dragonball: Evolution.

I was also excited for this movie, thinking that if they did it right it would be sensational. However after seeing the cast, I already knew it was going to be a bust. I hoped they would listen to the fans and perhaps stop production to ask the fans what they wanted. DBZ being one of the most widely successful Manga and animes of my generation, you would think the producers would realize that this was a make or break movie. Along with the many many diversions from the original series, many people forget that before the westernized cleaning and dubbing of the show there was a true japanese original as they all are. Not even yu-gi-oh is truly a kids show, but if you have to appeal to that audience than at least keep bulma's hair blue.

In a year that will not be mentioned in a country that will not be named, the first live action Dragonball movie was made and i watched it. Again, I was a devoted fan. This movie was in all respects could not even make it on the Sci-Fi channel. Below independent, barely above a dude on shrooms with a camera and way to much time on his hands. I can not even remember the plot to this movie, I would have never though such impossible bull**** could exist. Yet THAT! was better than this, again for the simply fact that the characters, overall fight scenes and world of that unknown asian non subtitled crap was actually damn entertaining. Oddly enough it also had all the characters while horribly dressed and wigs practically falling off actually looked like the anime series. It also had pretty good martial arts even though it absolutely no graphics and Goku was a preteen looking asian that was buffed out. How they found that kid boggled my mind but at least he looked similar to a young Goku. Same with Robin Shou as Lou.

I've not talked about the individual film and all it's short comings in this review because I could not actually sit through all of it. If another producer wishes to take on another monumentus adaptation like yu-gi-oh (heaven forbid) then please either do three things: cast lookalikes or work makeup magic and actually follow a plot paying attention to small yet important details and if you have to get "starwars opening" if you have to, but actually explain the world your trying to paint! Years later and I've still not gotten the guts to finish the movie and I really have no thought to."

"first lets talk about the actors- Goku was not supposed to be that puny, the hair was wrong. he looks more like a teenage gohan. even master roshi pronounced gohan wrong. none of the charatcers looked or feel like in the DBZ world. piccolo is supposed to have the namek suit and those things on his head, and the turban. The reason why the dragonball anime was so popular was because the author put so much effort into it, i bet he put more effort then the people who made this garbage. he also added his own style, everything from the characters, the environment(its a different earth you know), to the story, in his own way and put it together so perfectly that it was a masterpiece. Now if you changed what the writer put such as the story and characters, it becomes crap.

the story- Goku going to school? who wants to see that? It should have started from when goku fights the saiyans, when all the actions really starts. in this movie, goku is supposed to be small like 9 years old but very powerful and bulma is supposed to be like a teen. Oh yeah, the jokes in the movie were not good at all. The fight scenes using strings made it look fake. Goku turns to a gorilla in the movie but its supposed to be twice as big as king kong, in the movie hes like only 1 foot bigger. And Goku cant turn unless he still has his tail(it was cut off when he was small), thats the only way you can stop the transformation. the dragon is supposed to be skinny and much longer, in the movie it had a pot belly haha, thats what happens when americans turn a japanese manga into a crappy movie. I can tell the producer or writer didnt know anything about the manga, their kids probably just watched it.

if only they had mixed it with superman effects like flying, speed and made the monkey look like king kong destroying the cities it would have been better."

"Hello readers, I was so excited for this movie because I was a die hard fan. I had hope that it would be done right and be amazing, but unfortunately, this movie came from hell, I'm serious, if you go to hell, you'll be watching this movie for eternity.

This movie had to have been the biggest joke in 2009. And it proves that movies based on TV shows rarely succeed. After I saw this, I literally felt nauseous. For one there was no character development at all, if you didn't watch the show, you didn't understand who the heck was who. Another thing is that in this movie, every high school kid knows kung fu, and that wasn't even the worst thing. The worst thing was that the epic fight between Goku and Piccolo turned into a 5 second scene of crap. The actors sucked and the director totally broke off the original story, he took the characters and did whatever he wanted with them, which, you can tell if you've seen this movie, failed horribly.

Bottom line, if you were even considering of watching this movie, and your not getting paid, let me decide for you... don't watch it!

~The Narcoleptic Critic"

" On-line has 70 minutes of the movie, it has everything but the very beginning. You're better off not wasting your money in theaters or even on dvd though. I didn't have to see all of it to be disappointed.

I was more of a fan of Dragonball Z than the original series that was just called Dragonball. This movie is based on the Dragonball series. But it hardly does it justice.

Justin Chatwin for one thing is a horrible Goku. He's painful to watch, he can't act and was just wrong for the part. He just looks like a fan who got together with some High School friends and a camera. While the costumes are bad, as is the set design, effects and make-up.

It has a lot of things from the series like Goku being trained by Roshi, fight tournaments, ape transformations, wishing to a giant dragon. Plus Piccalo (James Marster) is the villain like he was in the Dragonball series. All that might sound like it will please you as a fan. But most of it was done in made for dvd fashion. Especially Goku's ape transformation. That was done so badly that it made me forget how far Hollywood has gone with visual effects. It just looked like a guy in a bad ape costume.

The film is such a bad adaption that it makes Speed Racer look like Gone with the Wind. Critics are going to have a ball bashing it if they hated Speed Racer. In closing, just skip it."