I knew before this movie came out that I wasn't going to like it, just because of how unfaithful it was to Dragon Ball. But before I watched it, I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt as a movie in general. I tried to watch this movie with a clean slate in mind, so I could give it a chance.
But even from a non biased standpoint, this movie is so incredibly lackluster.
I just got done watching the movie, and I'll try to mention my thoughts on it without mentioning the fact that it's not really a faithful adaptation. I will also try not to compare the movie to the source material, and will review it by its own merits.
The general direction of the movie is as the following...
Goku, a young boy who is raised by his grandpa, Gohan, goes to a high school where he is considered a loser, and is constantly bullied and he falls in love with a girl, Chichi, who is the girlfriend of the most popular guy at the high school they go to, Fuller, who incidentally is the guy that is bullying him. Overcoming the bullies, Goku gets the girl fairly early on in the movie.
There is a looming threat over the world though, as the evil Piccolo escapes from the Mafuba containment jar that he had been imprisoned in for the last 2000 years after wreaking havoc on the Earth, and sets in to motion his plan for exacting revenge on the Earth by using the Dragon Balls.
After the death of Goku's grandpa Gohan, by the hands of Piccolo, Goku must go on a journey with Bulma, Yamcha and Master Roshi to prevent Piccolo in succeeding with his plan to take revenge on the Earth, by gathering all seven Dragon Balls before him.
With the power of the seven Dragon Balls, they can summon the dragon known as Shen Long, and prevent Piccolo from taking over the Earth.
The movie tries to come off as campy, and serious at the same time, but it feels like an awkward transition between the two whenever the transition is made. Is it supposed to be campy with a side of serious? Or is it supposed to be serious with a side of campy? I don't know, and I don't think the movie knows either. It switches between the two quite often (such as Roshi's introduction to Bulma and Goku), and it feels very awkward and out of place at times. Unfortunately the movie rarely finds a good balance between the two, and you'll find yourself cringing at how ridiculous some of the scenes in the movie are because of it.
Piccolo as a villain, although I think Marsters did a good job as portraying Piccolo, just isn't that threatening. I mean he only does two or three "evil" things throughout the whole movie. They never really gave the Piccolo character a chance to shine as someone who could come off as terrifying and threatening. He felt more like a plot device to keep the movie going than anything else. Also, his intentions for using the Dragon Balls was never clear. At one point in the movie he mentions that he wants to rule the world. At another point, he mentions that he wants to destroy it. Typical bad guy attitude, to either destroy the world, or to rule it. Like I said, they really needed to improve Piccolo as a villain
The whole relationship aspect of the movie between Goku and Chichi, and Bulma and Yamcha is the very definition of the word "rushed". No one ever really bonded in this movie. I can understand if a movie tries to go for the "love at first sight" type of thing, but this is not that. All of the scenes when Bulma+Yamcha and Goku+Chichi are getting love-dovey, it just comes off as awkward and embarrassing. They really should have made the characters bond with each other more before they started introducing the relationship part of it all. That way it would have felt more natural when all of that happens.
Joon Park as Yamcha. Okay, this is a sort of 50/50 type of thing. While Joon has the voice of Yamcha down, the acting he does not. The only way for me to describe his performance in this movie is for me to put it like this... Joon Park has only been in two movies, and it shows. If he had tried a little harder, and not put so much emphasis on the "surfer boy" accent of his character, I think he could have pulled off Yamcha a bit better than he did. He had the right idea, but executed it poorly.
Rossum as Bulma. I think she was a good choice for this role, but I feel as if she was trying just a little bit too hard. She tries to pull off this tough-girl attitude so hard, it shows. Like Yamcha, she had the right idea, but it never really felt like she got in to the role. You could just tell that she was acting it the entire time. You never really get in to the whole "she's Bulma" thing. It never really felt like she got in to it, and everything she did seemed forced.
Fat as Roshi. Again, like all of the characters, he was trying WAY too hard to try and be Roshi. This guy is a great actor. I love watching movies with him in it. Like everyone else, he understands the type of character he needs to play, but he just executes it so poorly. He tried to be campy about the whole thing, and you can definitely tell. But it felt forced as well. It just never felt natural.
Chung as Chichi. This character really felt like the only weak link out of all of the main characters. Chichi felt more like a conveniently placed weak love-interest plot device to the main hero. She didn't really contribute anything major to this movie, other than being the love interest of the main character. Bulma and Yamcha helped Goku gather the Dragon Balls. Roshi trained Goku in the art of ki. Gohan took care of Goku all of his life, and helped train him in the art of ki and martial arts. Chichi... likes to fight? The problem is that the movie never really expanded on Chichi's character, and in the end, it came out as her being a really unrelatable character, as she is portrayed your typical love-stricken teenage girl with a guilty pleasure (in this case, fighting). She just conveniently appears in places where the main characters end up as well. Why does she like to fight? What does she find so appealing about Goku? These are questions that you never find out. You're never really told why she likes Goku or fighting, but the movie just assumes you'll accept it.
Randall as Gohan. A great casting choice and funny actor. He was probably my favorite out of all of the characters in the movie. He was an eccentric and wise old man, who had taken care of Goku all of his life since Goku's arrival to Earth, and had taught Goku martial arts and the art of ki. But he is a short lived character as he dies fairly early on in the movie. Not only that, but his death is just so lazily done, it felt like another weak plot device to keep the movie going. The character dies after the villain Piccolo kills him. After which, even though the character is mortally wounded, he stays alive JUST long enough for the main hero of the movie to find him dieing. In his dieing breath, he tells Goku about the Dragon Balls, Piccolo, etc. After which Goku begins his journey.
Chatwin as Goku. Right idea, bad execution. I could tell Chatwin knew what type of person Goku was, but when he tried to act that out in the movie, it just came off as awkward and poorly done. As cwhite12 once said, the reason Goku acted the way he did throughout Dragon Ball was because he had lived in seclusion with only his grandpa in the wilderness for his entire life, until he met Bulma. Goku in this version of Dragon Ball goes to school, and meets people other than his grandpa all day. So because of this, Chatwin has no excuse to act like Goku then, because the anime/manga Goku and the Goku in this version of Dragonball have lived two very different lives. So they should have two very different personalities. When you try to have the same personality for both of them, it comes off all awkward, and wrong. I hope that made sense. So to be fair to Chatwin, it wasn't entirely his fault. It was more of the scripts fault. Had the script called for Goku to act the way he did throughout the movie, it wouldn't have been as bad.
The story of Dragonball Evolution. The story felt rushed, plain and simple. I can't really put it any other way. I don't know why Wong felt it was necessary to only make this movie 89 minutes long. If he had made Dragonball Evolution at least 2:30hrs+ long, then a lot more ground could have been covered for the story, and the movie, overall, could have been more fulfilling.
-Why can Mai shapeshift?
-How did Piccolo escape the Mafuba container?
-How did the tournament end? Was that the end of it after Chichi defeated Mai?
These are only some of the questions that could have been answered if the movie had been longer. I also felt like they could have expanded on...
-Goku's origins
-Piccolo's origins as a Namek
-Mai's origins becoming Piccolo's right-hand woman
-The threat of everything. Like I said about Piccolo, he was never really that threatening as a villain. It never really felt as if there was a big threat throughout the entire movie either.
-The origin of the Fullum Assassin's.
-The origin of the Dragon Balls.
-Goku and Chichi's relationship
-Bulma and Yamcha's relationship
-The whole ki thing
Also, the ending. It was short and bitter. The ending of this movie just comes out of nowhere because of how short this movie is. The obstacles the heroes in this movie had to overcome never really felt like a challenge to any of them, as they just overcome it so easily.
Yamcha, Bulma, Roshi and Goku had to stop Piccolo from using the Dragon Balls. They do this in about ten minutes.
Goku had to, by shear force of will, turn back in to his normal form after turning in to Oozaru. He does this in about five minutes.
Goku had to come to terms with being Oozaru/Piccolo's disciple, and killing millions of people. He does this in about five minutes.
You see what I mean? It just never really felt like a challenge to any of them. It felt more like a small hurdle they had to jump over, and that's it. None of the characters really felt like they grew by the end of the movie. You don't feel better for the experience after watching the movie.
I just feel like making the movie only 89 minutes long was like the makers of this movie shooting themselves in the foot. 89 minutes was long enough to get the general story down, but it wasn't enough time to really expand on anything.
Some good things I will say about the movie.
-The SFX were pretty good. They weren't as good as I was hoping them to be, but they weren't bad either.
-The music was really nice for the most part. It had a nice feeling to it.
-The scenery in some of the places was really great to look at.
-There were quite a few scenes that I found to be funny.
So in conclusion? The movie made a lot of bad decisions, and was doomed before it even came out. Like Spider-man 3, it tried to cram too much in to the movie in a short amount of time. It never really expanded on anything, and so you don't feel anything for any of the characters, or for anything that happens throughout the movie. As a movie in itself, an 89 minute run time and a PG rating, you could pretty much guess this movie wasn't going to be too fantastic. Also, the cast of this movie was comprised of C-list and B-list actors, with only one A-list actor. Again, another determining factor in its demise as a movie.
Also, even though I said I wouldn't mention how this movie was unfaithful to the source material, I feel it should be mentioned here. Its unfaithfulness to Dragon Ball was another determining factor in its demise. Had this movie been more faithful, the fans of the anime/manga might have been more forgiving to the movie. But the movie failed a lot of the fans of the source material, and it failed as a movie in general due to it just feeling rushed, and incomplete.
If they do make sequels/prequels to this movie, they could learn a lot from the mistakes they made in this one.
-Make the movie longer
-Expand on what you introduce in to the movie, instead of just leaving it
-At least attempt at being more faithful to the source material
Overall, I would give the movie a 5/10.
Had the movie been longer and explained some of the things in the movie better (all of the stuff I mentioned above), it could have been 7/10.
Anywho, that's all. I hope my review was fairly non biased for the most part. I tried to not compare it to the anime/manga since that would be fruitless, since we all know it's not very faithful. If you have any questions about the movie, feel free to ask.
t:
facepalm:facepalm, what a total disaster. This film to me as a fan of Dragonball is unwatchable. Its so painful that I just cant see how anyone can like this movie. The word epic and this movie are worlds apart. There is nothing good about this movie nothing good at all. All the actors are bad every single one including Spike from Buffy. This could easily pass of as a spoof movie of Dragonball, I cant believe they are tying to pass this of as viewable material. Some of the lines in this movie are cringe worthy, I am... Gocoo (As Chatwin would say) I am Oozaru to be at one with myself I must beat you.Other cringe worthy cliche lines spouted in this disaster movie are "Something my grandfather thought me, first rule is there are no rules" (Also the delivery of this line and many in this film are hilarious and just gawdddd awful). There is nothing salvageable about this movie there is no redeeming quality and anyone that claims so I am inclined to deem a straight out liar (No ones taste is this bad that they would view this film as good or decent) 
