Running Commentary - Dragonball Z: Battle of the Gods

Okay, I picked up the Japanese release of this movie back in May and thought this would be a good candidate for a Running Commentary. Despite its many flaws, I am a fan of Dragonball Z and I'm excited about this movie and the prospect for more movies.  I should point out one thing here. Apparently this movie, which is the first of a new series from what I've heard, takes place in the ten year gap between the defeat of Majin Buu and when Goku faced Uub at the World Martial Arts competition. That said, it's time to push play...

The movie opens with impressive CGI animation of outer space. Hopefully this is a sign of some quality animation for the rest of the film. So Supreme Kai is having a psychic conversation with King Kai as Goku is training on his mini-planet. They don't want Goku to overhear their conversation about some new disturbance in the force or kai or whatever the fuck spiritual thing they have, but Goku hears of the name Lord Bills... God I hope that's just bad translation... and he wants an explanation. 

So Goku gets in King Kai's car and they drive that one road around that tiny planet over and over while King Kai explains to him about how Lord Bills is the God of Destruction that extinguishes life. Seriously, what the hell is up with King Kai's car? Why does King Kai have a classic car... where did that blue roach bastard even get the car, how did he get it to his planet? Did he drive it the 10,000 miles down Snake Way? And why even have a car when your planet it so small that all it has is a simple house, a few trees and a road?

Supreme Kai is worried about how many worlds will perish because of Lord Bills the God of Destruction, like Shiva but with a horrible dumb-shit name. And Goku wants to fight Lord Bills. He's just gotten cocky hasn't he? He's defeated space tyrants, killer androids and a mystical pink demon with a shlong on its head... so logically the next step is to fight gods. King Kai calls him stupid and the Lord Bills is the most powerful being in the universe... something that Goku cannot allow... why? I don't know, he's an idiot.

So some weird trans-sexual character, kind of looks like a Sailor Moon villain, tells Lord Bills to wake up. Apparently Lord Bill's alarm clocks are bombs that periodically go off until he gets out of bed. Sure, why not? So the Lord of Destruction goofily gets out of bed half asleep and we finally get a good look at this fear invoking foe... he looks like a big, purple, shaved Eqyptian cat. I'm not even kidding. What the fuck Dragonball Z?

Granted, Lord Bills carries on a tradition of DBZ creating massively powerful villains that look ridiculously harmless. Like remember Majin Buu's first form as a fat retard with boxing gloves? Or Janemba's initial form as a giant yellow fat baby thing? Even Freeza's final form didn't look that scary to me... just a pale salamander thing with the voice of a transvestite.

Speaking of Freeza, Lord Bills is shocked to find out from Whis, the Sailor Moon villain, that the confused gender conquerer had been defeated. Lord Bills finds out it was Goku that beat Freeza by becoming a Super Saiyan, which makes him think that a dream he had was actually a premonition... that he would battle a Super Saiyan God. Now I'm wondering if there is a God Form of Super Saiyan between Super Saiyan 3 and Super Saiyan 4.

So everyone's celebrating Bulma's birthday. She's pissed that both Goku and Vegeta are off training instead of at her party. I would be pissed too, especially with Goku. They've only known each other since he was 4! Apparently there is a bingo tournament at the party where you can win a plane or a castle, but no porno movies... sad Master Roshi.

Goku finds out from King Kai that Lord Bills is coming to the tiny planet. Kai tells Goku to hide in the house just before he arrives. Apparently the reason King Kai's planet is so tiny is because Lord Bills blew up most of it after losing a game of hide and seek. Yikes... hate to see how he would react at playing Mario Party. Goku and Lord Bills meet, but nobody knows anything about a Super Saiyan God. Lord Bills wants to go to Earth to ask the other saiyans, but Goku wants to spar to see how powerful purple Mr. Bigglesworth is. Lord Bills questions if Goku is extremely confident or just an idiot. Since confidence and naïveté go hand in hand, I'm pretty sure he's both.

Lord Bills tells Goku to come at him at full power. Goku first goes Super Saiyan, then into Super Saiyan 2, then finally into the long haired eyebrow-less Super Saiyan 3 form. Lord Bills kicks his ass! Goku doesn't even land a punch and in his frustration blows a hole straight through King Kai's planet! Then Lord Bills basically taps Goku and knocks his ass out! With that, Lord Bills and Whis depart for Earth, forcing King Kai to frantically telepathically warn Vegeta that he is coming to find him. After telling him of Goku's easy defeat, Kai warns Vegeta not to be an asshole to Lord Bills or the Earth may be destroyed. Vegeta not be an asshole? We're doomed.

Goku comes to and smiles because he's so happy such a strong opponent exists. I get it now, it's the head trauma! Years and years of fighting various enemies has given Goku enough head trauma to give him severe brain damage! But wait, the senzu beans would have fixed that. I guess he really is just an idiot.

We jump back to Bulma's party, where Vegeta is trembling in fear. Lord Bills arrives and we are treated to a flashback of when they first met, back when Vegeta was the cutest little egotistical asshole kid in the whole universe. It's not much of a flashback. Lord Bills was using Vegeta's dad like a footstool. Anyways, Bulma shows up and invites both of them to hang out at her party. We get a bunch of funny still shots of Lord Bills and Whis having fun at the party while Vegeta about has an aneurysm. Lord Bills is a great break-dancer by the way.

Holy crap, Emperor Pilaf is in this movie! He, along with his sidekicks Shu and Mai, are scrounging around Bulma's place in search of the Dragonballs. Apparently the last time they made a wish to Shenron the Dragon, Pilaf wished them to be young so now all three of them are kids. This time, Pilaf wants to be rich because he's sick of being poor. They happen upon the bingo prizes and discover first place wins you all 7 Dragonballs so you can make a wish! They're caught by Goten and Trunks. Upon seeing Goten, who looks just like his dad as a kid, they freak out at remembering little Goku turning into the giant ape. They run screaming from the building. Little Trunks has the hots for Mai. He invites her to the party, without knowing she stole the 4 star Dragonball and plans to hold it ransom for a million bucks. Mai, Pilaf and Shu all stay for the free food and bingo prizes. This subplot is weird.

Oh good. Now Goku is obsessed with becoming a Super Saiyan God. You know, this shit doesn't happen with Superman. He's either powerful enough, or he gets his friends to help him kick someone's ass. He isn't destroying planet surfaces trying to become a Super Kryptonian or something.

So the whole party subplot gets weird when the prizes are brought out for bingo and Yamcha realizes the 4 star ball is missing. Pilaf and Shu think they're caught, but Mai tries to take Trunks hostage for the ransom. Everyone thinks it's a joke, so Gohan dresses as the Great Saiyaman and eggs her on to fire her gun at his face, thinking's it's just a toy. He deflects all of the bullets, then scolds her for having a real gun. However, Videl, Gohan's wife, was hit in the leg by one of the ricocheting bullets, but Dende heals her and in doing so realizes she is with child, which she whispers to him to keep a secret. Okay, what the fuck happened to the plot!? Lord Bills fighting Goku? Destroying stuff?

One of the bullets also hit Lord Bills in the forehead. He said it itches and is annoyed. He is about to destroy the planet over this when Vegeta hops on stage and begins dancing and singing about how they should play bingo and that bingo is fun. Either that or there is a gas leak somewhere in my house.

So while everyone else plays bingo, Lord Bills wants some of fat Buu's pudding, but pink fatty won't share. This pisses off purple kitty man and he starts going all Earth destroyey. He kicks fat Buu into the next county (yay!) and then starts beating the crap out of the other Z-Warriors as they charge him to try to stop him from, you know, destroying stuff. He beats up Gohan, Buu and Vegeta while Whis eats sushi. But now Goten and Trunks fuse to become Gotenks, but just end up getting spanked... literally. You know, instead of this violence, someone could just get cat guy some damn pudding! 

On a side note, I just want to point out that in this part of the series, if you aren't a Saiyan... you suck. I miss the days when Piccolo mattered or when Tien was a formidable opponent (okay, you have to go back to Dragonball for that, but still). Saiyans are all pretty much the same with the same powers. Remember all the cool shit Piccolo could do?  Yeah, now he is relegated to being a relic of the franchise alongside Yamcha and Android 18. I always thought that was lame. I also want to point out another thing. Krillin is kicked around a lot and treated like a joke, but realize that he is the most powerful human on Earth. He doesn't have the flashy power levels of the various aliens he fights alongside, but if it was an all human fight, Krillin kicks everyone's ass! I'm not saying he shouldn't be comic relief, just that everyone forgets what he is capable of.

So getting back to the movie, Bulma slaps Lord Bills for ruining her party. He smacks her back, sending her to the ground face first. Vegeta goes ballistic at seeing this. Vegeta really went soft at some point, didn't he? Holy crap, he's actually not just hitting Lord Bills, but kicking the crap out of him. Master Roshi declares that Vegeta has finally surpassed Goku. Wow, all he needed was seeing his woman get pimp slapped. After a massive energy blast, Lord Bills is predictably unphased. He knocks out Vegeta with a finger to the head. The Earth is screwed.

But then Goku returns! He tells Lord Bills he can become a Super Saiyan God if he will delay destroying the Earth. Purple cat agrees and Goku gets the Dragonballs. Ugh, I actually figured he would wish it. Granted, I'm surprised Goku or one of his opponents never wished to become more powerful. Or for a bigger wang.

So Shenron tells the story of how thousands of years ago, the good Saiyans created a Super Saiyan God to take out the bad Saiyans. So if 5 good-hearted Saiyans join hands, they can grant a sixth one the power of a Super Saiyan God. Goku takes in their power, but they realize he is not a god, just more powerful. They still need a sixth, but there is only Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Goten and Trunks. But wait, there's the fetus inside Videl! Everyone's happy to find out about the baby. So with the help of the mass of fetal cells that will one day become Pan, they summon the Saiyan energy to make Goku a god. A sparkly red-headed god. Seriously, besides the sparkly energy, red hair and red eyes, he looks the same. I kind of thought he would be wearing a tunic or something. Whatever... time for fighting!

Lord Bills says that if Goku has become a god, he won't destroy the Earth. Wow, thanks purple cat of death! Granted, their battle might just kill all life on Earth anyways, but bully to you cat god!  

So they fight all around the nearby big city but surprisingly do no collateral damage. That's right, two supremely powerful beings are able to fight in an urban environment without destroying the place and killing lots of innocent people! Take that Man of Steel!

So they fight through a forest, into a desert, into an ocean and underground, all while Goku expresses dissatisfaction with being a god as he couldn't reach that level alone. They both go full power, but soon Goku just stops being a god. He is at regular Super Saiyan level, yet still kicking ass. That doesn't really make any sense, but whatever... explosions! They fight into the stratosphere, where Goku probably destroys the ozone layer with a massive Kamehameha blast at purple kitty, who returns the favor with a blast of his own. Goku catches the blast, then realizes his god power is gone, but his fighting strength has grown from their sparring... or some crap like that. Kitty overpowers Goku with more energy until his god form temporarily returns long enough to vanquish the ball of destruction and save Earth.

Goku learns that there are eleven other universes, each with beings just as if not more powerful than Lord Bills. Even though he lost, Goku succeeds in that he learns that he doesn't have to be the strongest... or maybe he doesn't learn that. He still acts like he wants to fight everyone. Goku needs a fucking hobby, seriously.

So God Cat returns to Earth and apologizes to Bulma for slapping her and ruining her party. He and Whis vow to come back to her party next year. Then we see that all anyone really needed to do to defeat Lord Bills was feed him some wasabi. I know it's for comic effect, but wasabi isn't that hot. Then Goku insinuates that for Vegeta to get more powerful, all someone needs to do is slap Bulma... which is what I said. This pisses off both Vegeta and Bulma, the latter deciding to slap Goku... which leads me to wonder why the hell that would hurt Goku? Maybe he's just playing or pretending to spare her feelings, but after taking on opponents whose fists could level mountains, why would a girl slap even register on his pain meter? This movie is just weird.

Final Thoughts

I hope any future DBZ movies are better than this. Battle of the Gods wasn't horrible or even the worst movie of the franchise (Bio-Broly still gets that shit-stain of a rank). It just felt like a massive wink to the fans with the most miniscule storytelling involved. And I don't want to hear about how Dragonball Z always had bad storytelling because that's not true. The 13th DBZ movie, the one with Topian and Goku going the dragon punch, that was awesome. It had a great story, good character involvement and cool fight sequences. I'm not putting it on the pedestal of Neon Genesis Evangelion or Cowboy Bebop, but it was decent. This movie was mostly for laughs. Vegeta singing... silly antics of the God of Destruction... Emperor Pilaf in general... it was just silly. While it was nice to see new DBZ again, I hope the next movie (due in 2015) will be better.

I do have to question one thing, however. I had heard that since this new movie involved Toriyama and Dragonball GT didn't, that this is now the new continuity. Does that mean GT will be erased? That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but it does make me wonder.

Until next time... Stay Strange

TERRIBLE Comic Book Movie Adaptations (the 3rd and Final Part)

Here is my conclusion to the worst comic book adaptations I have ever seen. Maybe someday there will be a fourth installment. I can only pray there won't...

Priest – I’m not familiar with the comic this movie was based on, but the movie seemed like it could have been cool. It wasn’t. There was only one thing that worked in this movie and that was Karl Urban. Thank God for Karl Urban. Priest was set in a post-apocalyptic meets dystopian future where religion rules what remains of society and priests, highly trained spiritual warriors, are humanity’s only defense against evil. Seems cool on the surface, but remember… it isn’t. So the main character priest guy goes after these vampires who are more like nocturnal demons with no eyes than Dracula or sparkly metro-sexual vampires. The vampires appear to be on the offensive, wiping out various outland towns and villages. Turns out their being led by a fallen priest who was turned into the first human-vampire… and it’s Karl Urban! The movie soon became a test of will as Jonny and I would anxiously wait for the next scene featuring Karl Urban.  Everything else just seemed stupid and forgettable. Priest suffers from a myriad of problems. While I say I know little of the comic, I do know it does not take place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future. That aspect was invented by the Hollywood Mediocrity Machine (patent pending). Whenever you have people outside of the source material making such drastic changes to the plot, story or even setting, you are asking for trouble. I mean, what if somebody else decided to continue Bryan Fuller’s Dead Like Me without any involvement from the creator despite his heavy influence toward the feel, direction and mythos of the show?  Oh wait, that happened. So did S. Darko. (It can’t be undone, people!) Another issue was that the plot was implausible. No, I don’t mean that vampires exist. I mean that it took how many millennia for a human to be infected by a vampire? Really? How was Karl Urban’s character the first one? I call bullshit! This race of vampire had to have been smart enough to realize the benefits of turning humans. For one thing… humans have eyes! Those optical things do kind of come in handy don’t they?  Plus, a human-looking vampire can infiltrate human civilization. That certainly improves the odds of eating them! Honestly, Jonny and I were more fascinated by the dystopian society ruled by religion aspect of the story than a dumb Judge Dredd versus vampires plot. Thank God for Karl Urban. Both for helping us survive Priest and giving us a GOOD Judge Dredd! Which leads me to…

Judge Dredd – This movie should have worked. It had good special effects with details and characters straight from the comic. Then mistakes were made. Many, many mistakes. On the surface, Sylvester Stallone is a great fit for the title role of Judge Dredd. The character is portrayed as a snarling, tough as nails, takes no bullshit cop with the power to be judge, jury and executioner all in one. Plus, Stallone brought great star power to the movie. But someone apparently forgot to tell Sly Stallone that Judge Dredd NEVER TAKES OFF HIS DAMN HELMET! This might seem trivial to bitch and moan over, but it is a huge detail to overlook considering the authenticity to the source material and the meaning behind Dredd’s hidden façade. Judge Dredd represents justice at its most carnal, most brutal, but also most honest. Dredd is the uniform complete with helmet and it represents him just as much as he and the uniform represent the law that he serves, abides by and sacrifices for. In the same way that justice is blind, you don’t see Dredd’s face. Having Stallone walk around 95% of the movie without the helmet made Judge Dredd just another Stallone flick. It’s the same reason that lesser known actors were cast in the Watchmen movie. The goal was to see Ozymandias, not Tom Cruise as Ozymandias.  Thank God for Karl Urban. He left that helmet on the whole time. He got it where Stallone didn’t and probably didn’t care. (It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Sly never even read a single Dredd comic to prepare for the role.) The plot to Judge Dredd felt underwhelming, as if nothing was really at stake. Seriously, Jonny and I both think that the best part of the movie was the ABC Warrior robot that Rico (Dredd’s evil clone brother who surprisingly looked nothing like Dredd) uses as part of his scheme. Most would argue that the biggest problem with the movie was Rob Schneider. Herman Ferguson was made to be this comic relief that felt akin to a Death Wish movie where Charles Bronson had to drag Pee Wee Herman around with him. Not only did it not work, it missed the bar for the usual dark humor that the Judge Dredd book notoriously brings. Instead it was like the boring version of Demolition Man (boring because Wesley Snipes wasn’t in it and let’s be honest, he stole the damn show in that movie!). Plus, Hollywood is obsessed with this idea of there always having to be a romantic subplot. The comic, however, never really shows any romantic desires on the part of Judge Dredd because such relationships are forbidden among judges. So having Judge Hershey kiss Dredd simply would not have happened as Hershey would have known better and Dredd wouldn’t have allowed it.  Sadly, the script seemed to be built on the best of intentions. Pat Mills, a writer for the Judge Dredd comic who helped to develop the character early on, penned the screenplay and filled it with lots of characters, images and details straight from the source material. Even the annoying Schneider was based on the Fergie character in the book. Like I said, the movie should have worked. I think the Hollywood Mediocrity Machine (again, patent pending) got their hands on the film project and turned it into mindless action cheese, which is sad considering how unique and complex the Judge Dredd comic is.

Jonah Hex – Jonny and I didn’t hate this movie, but lots of people did… and we can see why. If you are a fan of Jonah Hex comics, this movie will anger you. We have never really read those comics, so our knowledge of the disfigured bounty hunter is limited. However, I can tell you that the movie was really stupid at times. I know Jonah doesn’t have supernatural powers, so his talking to the dead thing was total bullshit. It was quite amusing to watch Megan Fox try to pull off a western accent and… well, attempt to act. Considering that she was paired with Josh Brolin, who is easily one of the best American actors today, it was all the more painful to watch. (I must also point out that her playing a prostitute in the Wild West was very misleading. Wild West hookers were not that attractive!) John Malkovich was his usual intellectual bad guy (i.e. Cyrus the Virus) which he has mastered to such a level that I am confident he was just phoning in his performance, yet he still managed to be one of the best actors in the movie. Brolin did a great job; he really made the best of a bad situation. (For the purposes of this review, situation is another word for script.) The best actor in the movie was Michael Fassbender, who stole the damn show as Malkovich’s crazy Irish henchman. He was freakin’ awesome and the main reason Jonny and I didn’t hate the movie. Hell, Fassbender’s good enough for me to encourage people to see this stupid movie just to check out his performance! So to sum up this wretch, Malkovich gets this super secret weapon that… I’ll just say it… it’s basically a nuclear bomb without being a nuclear bomb. You know that thing where a movie will take place before scientists split the atom, but want that end-all-be-all super weapon so the writer comes up with a ridiculous “not-a-nuke” thing? That’s what Malkovich had. (For note, I did like the steampunk nuke from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes… it was ridiculous and yet somehow awesome.)  So when President Grant finds out about Malkovich having the weapon (which I can describe only as fiery super-balls of death), he whips out the classic cliché “Get me Jonah Hex.” Yes, somehow this movie was a secret agent film set in the Wild West without Will Smith and giant mechanical spiders. I do have to question how the president knew of a random bounty hunter out west and thought so highly of him as to place the fate of the United States in his hands… the same hands, by the way, that had not long before fought for the Confederacy. (I wonder if the writer of Jonah Hex ever uttered the words “Wow, it writes itself!) So inevitably Jonah Hex and his side-kick Whore-girl save the day. President Grant commends Hex for a job well done and appoints him a US Marshall. In the last scene, Dirty Harry Hex throws the US Marshall badge he got into the reflecting pool in Washington DC and walks off into the sunset with his lady rental. Wow, words cannot express... the bile rising in the back of my throat.

Dragonball: The Magic Begins & Dragonball: Evolution – I am counting these two

because Dragonball started out as a manga. I’ve already explained why I don’t think a

Dragonball movie will ever work. These awful experiments in cinematic torture just prove my point.  Dragonball: The Magic Begins was a Taiwanese film that was so terrible, I have never watched the whole thing. In fact, a friend and I attempted to watch it at two in the morning, the golden hour for viewing bad cinema, and still couldn’t get through it! The only positive I will give that movie was that the actor they cast as Master Roshi was SPOT ON. He looked and acted exactly how I picture the eccentric perverted martial arts master to behave. It is because of that movie that my expectations were so low that I didn’t think Dragonball: Evolution was that level of bad. I reached this conclusion on the fact that I was able to watch the entirety of that movie. But holy shit was that movie crappy. It’s sad since the cast was great; you had Justin Chatwin and Emmy Rossum, both of whom are amazing on Shameless. Plus you had Chow Yun Fat, Jamie Chung and James Marsters. But good actors can only do so much with a shitty script. The film could have starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Kevin Spacey, Natalie Portman and Matt Damon; Hell, you could have raised Stanley Kubrick from the dead to direct and that movie still would have been a steaming pile of dog shit. Like I said before, I don’t think you can make a live action Dragonball movie work, but certainly setting it in our world with a white American high school student named Goku wasn’t the best idea.

Fist of the North Star – Again, Fist of the North Star (aka Hokuto No Ken) began as a manga, so I am counting this horrid excuse for a martial arts flick. Unlike the Dragonball franchise, I actually believe this could work as a live action movie (perhaps a future installment of Live Action Casting?). With the right cast, a good script, a passionate director and a great fight choreographer, Fist of the North Star could be awesome. This movie, however, was not. I can sum it up simply with this sentence: Martial arts master Ryuken was played by Malcolm McDowell.  I love Malcolm McDowell. I have the 40^th anniversary Blu-Ray of A Clockwork Orange and have McDowell’s autographed picture hanging in my den. But seriously, I can’t use my love of the man to suspend my belief well enough to buy a British man as the practicing master of an ancient martial art. I don’t remember a ton about this movie but I do recollect that it was very low budget. Most of its money was probably blown with one cool effect at the beginning of the movie where Kenshiro made a bad guy’s head explode. In hindsight, I should have just turned off the movie there as it was all downhill from that point.  I remember the late Chris Penn played a character named Jackal which was a cross between a warlord of the same name and Jagi, a villain I would have much rather seen. As the plot was based on the first story-arc of the series involving Shin, there was no Raoh or Jagi or Rei. I do remember the actor who played Rufio in Hook played a similarly annoying character that died the exact same way! He was literally impaled on a sword! I couldn’t stop laughing at that. I would love to see a big budget attempt at Fist of the North Star. (Hell, with today’s computer effects, it wouldn’t even have to be that expensive to show the gore.) Considering how well 300 did, Fist of the North Star could easily be a success. With the right amount of love for the genre (think the Wachowskis and Speed Racer), a good filmmaker could really make this property into an awesome franchise.

Spawn – I’ve only seen Spawn once and it was in the theater way back when it came out.  I’m not sure what exactly turned me off about this movie. It wasn’t abysmal, but I didn’t like it either. It wasn’t Michael Jai White or Martin Sheen, I thought they did fine. I thought John Leguizamo did a good job as the Clown, though I think the character was written a little too over the top. I would have preferred a less comical (and less flatulent) interpretation like the twisted, evil Clown from the HBO animated series (fair warning, I am going to mention that cartoon repeatedly). I thought Spawn himself looked crappy. He really looked nothing like the comic book version and more like a cross between that fleshy CGI costume the movie Green Lantern wore and the Venom symbiote. The special effects weren’t all that great if I remember correctly. I guess one of the biggest problems with the movie was that it abandoned the dark adult feel of the comic (something that the HBO cartoon got right) in favor of a more kid-friendly action flick. Now stop to think about this a second. Spawn is the story of a vicious mercenary who is murdered by his allies, gets sent to hell and makes a deal with the devil to become one of his elite soldiers so he can come back to Earth to seek his revenge.  (Wow, I know what show can follow Yo Gabba Gabba!) Honestly, I hated the ending. Spawn uses telekinesis to remove a bomb remote from the heart of Martin Sheen’s character Jason Wynn (you know, the whole if his heart stops the bomb explodes thing). I haven’t read a ton of Spawn, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember Spawn having telekinetic powers. He had energy powers, teleportation, spikes, claws, super strength, a healing factor, near invulnerability, magic chains and a magic morphing cape that could help him glide and form shields when necessary. I don’t remember him having super telekinetic powers. I also don’t remember the movie mentioning he had those powers prior to the climax. To me it just felt like a contrived ending where Spawn pulled a power out of his ass to conveniently conclude the movie with the good guys winning. Once again, I must say that the HBO cartoon of Spawn had it right. It captured the dark feel, the gritty tone, the violence and the feeling of a wayward soldier seeking a balance between revenge and redemption. If my sketchy memory of the movie is any indication, the live action Spawn was just forgettable.    

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – I can’t not bring up this movie; Jonny Prophet would never forgive me. Truth be told, I didn’t hate this movie, I honestly feel it wasn’t that bad. However, I am not familiar with the source material. Jonny is. Like most of Alan Moore’s famous works, film adaptations were made of them without his consent and changes were made. In this case, the script writers clearly decided to ignore what made the book interesting in favor of making yet another superhero movie, this time a silly one involving famous literary characters and historical legends.  But somewhere along the way, these writers must have decided that Allen Quatermain, Mina Murray, the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo and Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde were not interesting enough (when you eliminate all the aspects of their personalities that made them interesting in the comic, who can blame them?). So the writers added two completely non-comic characters in Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray. Sadly, because of how badly the original members of the team are written, Sawyer and Gray are the most interesting characters in that movie.  The entire film is a farce of the source material. Aside from using the 5 original characters (practically in name only) there is not much else faithful to the comic. For me, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a dumb, cheesy action film using public domain superheroes with really nothing more of substance. The truth is that the book centers on “extraordinary” people, not heroes. Quatermain was an opium addict. The Invisible Man was a pervert. Mr. Hyde was a murderous cannibal. Captain Nemo was more interested in world conquest than saving it. But all of these details were either lost or glossed over for the film, which resulted in the adaptation of an interesting graphic novel into just another bland production from the Hollywood Mediocrity Machine (yes, the patent is still pending). Though there were some cool moments, the movie is largely forgettable. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen does have one sad distinction, however. It was Sean Connery’s final film before his retirement. (Come on, Sean, Raul Julia didn’t get a choice in his final role being M. Bison in that craptacular Street Fighter flick, but you can still end on a high note!) Sigh.

Now comes the part where I reveal which of these crappy movies I own in my collection:

The answer is 6… Spider-Man 3, Batman & Robin, The Spirit, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Jonah Hex and Superman Returns.

Now comes the part where I try to defend myself:

I got Spider-Man 3 at Walmart on Black Friday for $2. It was worth $2 to me.

This past Black Friday at Walmart I got X-men Origins: Wolverine for $4 on Blu-ray. There is enough good in the movie to justify it… I think. All right, fine, I’m a sucker for Blu-ray… I admit it.

That same night at Walmart, I got Jonah Hex for $1. The Michael Fassbender performance alone is worth a dollar to me. Plus, Jonny and I can riff that movie to shreds.

Batman and Robin were included in a four movie set of the old Batman movies from Burton and Schumacher.

I got the Spirit from my local Blockbuster for $1. It was worth a dollar to me. (BTW, Jonny got his for a penny on Amazon, but he had to pay shipping. It’s sort of a personal victory for each of us.)

And I own Superman Returns because Jonny Prophet is a bad person! He got the movie at a ‘white elephant’ Christmas gift exchange and decided to wrap it up and give it to me! I got him back though. I gave him his very own copy of John Cena’s The Marine complete with his name in permanent marker on the disc so no second hand shop will dare separate Jonny from his gift. Take that, Jonny Prophet!  

Why Nobody Should Ever Make a Live Action Dragonball Movie Again

I’m convinced that you cannot make a good Dragonball live action movie.  So far there have been three attempts to make a live action “cash-in” off the Dragonball franchise. While I have not seen the Korean movie from 1990, the two I have seen were both awful. I mean, they were so bad that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay choose water-boarding over watching them! I can only imagine how bad the Korean movie is. Why are these movies so terrible? The answer will also help explain why such a movie should never exist…

Now, I am a fan of the Dragonball franchise which is comprised of three separate series: Dragonball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT. Is the franchise flawed? Definitely. Does it run on for far too long at times with unnecessary padding? You betcha. That said, it would be foolish to discredit the impact that the franchise has had on action cartoons both in Japan and America.

Right away I must point out that there is a big difference between making a comic book movie like Iron Man and making a Dragonball film. Yes, I know Dragonball started as manga, but even that followed a long storyline of continuity while most American comic books work on either stand-alone stories of smaller story arcs, usually being no more than twelve parts. The problem is that with a good writer a somewhat original story can be written for a character like Iron Man while still including major plot points from the comics. (For instance, the first Iron Man borrowed from the origin and the Iron Monger storyline.) It is far more difficult to write a decent Dragonball script that essentially gets all the characters together, have them hunt for the dragonballs, establishes a villain who probably also wants the dragonballs, have Goku train and get more powerful (as he always did in every storyline) and have him wage an epic battle against the villain. If it were just those plot points it might not be so bad, but it gets a lot trickier.

For one thing, there is just too much continuity. Hundreds of episodes were made for Dragonball and Dragonball Z. I just don’t think you can tell an adequate story that establishes both Goku and whatever villain he is facing while giving screen time to fan favorites. Today’s movies aim to be around ninety minutes to allow for more showings at cinemas and thus more money. You can get away with two hours with some genres like drama and some action. Occasionally you will get a very long movie like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Dark Knight that will be allotted extra time to cover more ground with the story, but studios will only give this special extended length to features guaranteed to get people in the theaters. Dragonball, whose heyday ended about a decade ago, holds no such guarantee. So with a length of one hundred twenty minutes tops, how do you tell a good story without butchering the source material too much (making your fanboy demographic very angry in the process), give screen time to all the necessary characters and give the audience the satisfying epic fights and battles they come to expect from a popcorn flick such as this? Unless you are making all original bad guys or basing it off one of the stand alone movies, I don’t think you can. 

Now you have to consider what the target audience wants from the film and in turn what the studio will want to ensure the biggest profit. First of all, most Americans are really only familiar with Dragonball Z, but the story started with Dragonball… which in of itself was comprised of 153 episodes. Kind of a lot to skip, don’t you think? Also consider that Dragonball followed Goku from around age 5 until adulthood (the series ended with him getting married to Chi-Chi) and all throughout Goku learned new techniques and became a better fighter. However, studios would rather the movie jump to the huge world shattering fights of Dragonball Z since a lot of Americans found the original series boring. (For the record, Jonny Prophet and I both agree that Dragonball is the best of the three series.) So do you tell a slower story that builds up Goku gradually and risk that the earlier films don’t make enough to continue the franchise or do you cash your chips and start with Spirit Bombs and Super Saiyans in the hopes of having a box office hit and risk telling a disjointed story that pisses off the fanbase? Secondly, you run the risk of having another situation like Spider-man 3… trying to please everyone and ending up with too many characters for the time allotted. You want to see Picollo, right? What about Vegeta? Are you still going to introduce Goku’s friends and allies such as Master Roshi, Bulma, Chi-Chi, Krillin and Yamcha? That’s a lot of characters in a movie that is supposed to establish the hero first and foremost. Even Dragonball Evolution, which limited the characters to Goku, Bulma, Yamcha, Chi-Chi, Master Roshi and Picollo (I know there was some ninja chick, but she was just filler), ended up having too many characters to juggle and made for a story that felt very rushed… and crappy.  

I also have to make this point. When making this movie, how do you visualize it looking in your head? For the life of me I cannot envision this movie ever looking good with flesh and blood actors. In Dragonball Evolution we already saw that Piccolo looked like a weird green vampire thing. Do you really think Vegeta can be made to look any better with his long spiked up hair and widows peak? How about Freeza; would he be CGI or would, God help us, someone be wearing a rubber costume ala’ Godzilla? Maybe you can do a stop motion thing with Andy Serkis!  And what would a Super Saiyan look like with its blonde hair sticking up and energy aura? I just do not see it translating well onto the big screen.  

See, modern superhero movies have found a nice balance between costumes and superpowers meeting our reality. Even Thor, the most fantastical of the modern superhero films had a somewhat down to Earth feel. The problem with Dragonball’s world is that it doesn’t have a firm grasp on our reality to begin with! You have humans co-mingling with anthropomorphic animals, dinosaurs randomly walking around, advanced technology like robots, flying cars and “capsules” that can make almost anything portable! It works in a comic and cartoon, but on a big screen… not so much. This is why Evolution tried to establish itself in essentially our world which right off the bat meant the movie had lost a major element to its charm and severed a link to the source material that left the end product kind of flat.

Casting is also a big issue. If the movie is made in America, then it will be expected that a white male will fill the title role of Goku… hence the casting of Justin Chatwin. (Because lots of Canadians are named Goku, right?). I like Justin Chatwin, I enjoyed him in The Chumscrubber and love him on Shameless, but he had no business doing Dragonball. I could never get used to a white guy playing Goku… it’s like a white guy playing Othello! It’s just not right! The problem is Hollywood only really works with a few Asian martial artists, ones who are fluent in English and are recognizable to the US market. Yes, a few are introduced like Jay Chou as Kato in last year’s Green Hornet or Rain in Ninja Assassin or even Jang Gong Don in The Warrior’s Way, but I haven’t seen them popping up recently (in Rain’s case because he joined the South Korean army).

Another casting issue is that all of the characters in the Dragonball universe have very unique appearances and above all come across cartoonish… being a cartoon that can be expected. Some characters might look alright, such as Krillin, Nappa and Yamcha (somehow, even though Dragonball Evolution cast an Asian guy as Yamcha, they still managed to screw it up by giving him bleached blonde hair!). We already saw that Picollo looked like ass in Evolution, how bad would they screw up Vegeta, Freeza and Cell? Crappy looking characters can ruin a movie’s reputation before it even hits theaters… or did we forget the movie version of Parallax?

Dragonball Evolution is proof that just because Hollywood can do it doesn’t mean they should. Yes, we can do great special effects and CGI nowadays, but that doesn’t replace a good story… unless your name is Michael Bay, then it’s your bread and butter. The truth is I don’t think that there is a good way to tell a decent story using the Dragonball universe within the Hollywood system. The way the series is set up is like that of a long-running serial that builds off the previous long-running serial. Having five hundred and eight episodes allows for a thorough exploration of the show and its characters. Having a hundred and twenty minutes just leads to a confusing, jumbled mess… with explosions.