Another film that I watched was "Dragonball Z Evolution", a film that I was VERY hesitant in watching because I was thoroughly convinced that it was going to be bad because I saw the trailer early last year and it just looked...bad. Plus, I wasn't a fan of Dragonball Z and didn't know anything about it.
The film stars Justin Chatwin, Emmy Rossum, Chow Yun-Fat, Jamie Chung, and James Marsters and it's directed by James Wong who directed the first and third installments of The Final Destination franchise. It was produced by Stephen Chow, who I adore as a filmmaker. I practically forced myself to watch the film because I knew I had to get it out of the way. Imagine my surprise when I actually ended up enjoying this film. That's right cinephiles, you can crucify me all you want. I'm standing by this one. It's not The Dark Knight but it's definitely a fun brainless film to watch. What I loved about this film is that it brought out the kid in me. The kid who used to come home every day from school and watch The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on TV. The original Power Rangers with David Yost and Amy Johnson not that Turbo Power Rangers crap. It brought me back to that time. Yes it had cheesy moments and it's not for everyone but I thoroughly enjoyed this film and was hating myself the whole time for it.
Having said that, there were some issues I had with the movie. Now I'm the last one that would ever play the race card, but I found it odd that they cast a white actor as Goku instead of an asian one and his grandfather in the movie was asian! Maybe that was for American audiences, but I thought that was a cop out on Hollywood's part. No offense to Justin Chatwin because he did a great job as Goku. That's another thing, despite the material the performances from the actors were, for the most part, solid. Chow Yun-fat was especially charming as Master Roshi. Also I have three words ERNIE FUCKING HUDSON!! I can't believe he was in this and I don't even care that this means his career is in the shitter right now. Anyway, a paycheck is a paycheck. Ghostbusters will always be his get out of jail free card with me baby!! Another issue I had with the movie was that is got a little confusing at times but that could be due to the fact that I'm not familiar with the lore of Dragonball Z. The score was the most generic score ever. I just pretty much pretended it didn't exist.
From a technical standpoint, this film is an absolute marvel!! Eye candy galore. There is lots of colors and the cinematography is solid. One reviewer stated that it "is perhaps the most successful live-action film to date to utilize costume, production, and audio design, not to mention some inspired fight choreography, to provide the flavor of anime without becoming overly cartoonish." Of course not everyone feels that way. The film was universally panned and was a flop in the US but opened at number one in the asian markets. The film is great to look at and the sound design was way better than I expected. It practically blew me out of the living room!! I love that. I love being wrapped in sound. The special effects were actually decent and I didn't cringe too much. This is definitely a guilty pleasure for me and will most likely achieve cult status. There are some power ranger-esque cheesy lines that I just died over! It fed my cheesetastic meter to the max and I always say it doesn't hurt to add cheese to your burger sometimes. It never hurts a film, however there is a very fine line between cheesy good and cheesy bad. I'm not ashamed to say that I loved every cheesetastic moment of this film. It made me feel like a boy of 12 again.
So my point here, cinephiles, is that sometimes you have to let the cheese in. Leave your brain at the door sometimes and just enjoy. This film goes by a case by case basis. You may like it, you may not. Me? I liked it enough to watch it again at some point. It is what it is and you can't blame it for that.
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