It must be a real drag being a Jungian archetype. Aside from the inconvenience of possessing a thousand faces, imagine minding your own business, practicing judo with some wise and wily sage, when you're suddenly handed a magic sword or glowing swishy stick or cosmic catapult and tipped headlong into some damn-fool quest to go and rescue a princess and kill your dad - no, hang on, wrong shrink - or confront some Dark Lord (who may actually turn out to be your dad, bummer), while also confronting the darkness within your own soul (look harder, not using the recycling bin doesn't count).
And the real bore of it all is, the thing that makes you want to stick your arms in a mincer, is that you know exactly what's going to happen next, which charming rogue you're going to meet on the road, which cuckolding temptress you're going to wind up married to for the next 100 years, and precisely which one of your battle-hungry, blood-crazed stepsons is going to do you in with a pillow when you're no longer fit to preside over a model railway set.
The story is old, but it goes on. And it's always a pleasure when it's well told. But when plots and characters are as insultingly stock as they are in Dragonball Evolution, you start fervently praying for a bit of Jodorowsky-style subversion, possibly involving the heroine, the Dark Lord, a sackful of syringes and a malnourished donkey called Carlos. This resembles a fever dream you might have had after slipping into an E-number-aggravated blood sugar crash while watching The Star Wars Trilogy. Dragonball Evolution is so derivative, such a bare-faced rip-off of George Lucas' pension, that it actually seems completely pointless to pick holes in it. You might as well just attack the originals for their myriad faults and get two birds with one stone.
"In an ancient time, Earth was nearly destroyed " begins the ponderous voice-over."Not by man, but by Gods from the sky..." Most dramas smuggle their exposition in via the dialogue. This one just ram raids it out of the store. For what it's worth, the story involves a young hero called Goku, played by the Westerner Justin Chatwin (slightly creepily playing an 18 year-old at age 26) who embarks on a quest for the titular world-saving Dragon Balls after his martial artist grandpa Gohan is killed off by the evil Lord Piccolo (Marsters, resembling an over-sized Jawa with food poisoning). Will Goku manage to harness the powerful force called Ki and confront his own werewolf side? Find Master Roshi - who trained grandpa in turn? Defeat Piccolo - probably the only villain named after a small flute? And win the love of ass-kicking classmate Chi Chi? Seriously?
There's probably a point to be made about the eternal exchange of cultural currency; Japan wresting back characters and plot lines from Lucas, then flogging them to the West again; Eastern aesthetics filtered through American sensibilities. But frankly, that's just the way the world works. The good news is this is only 84 minutes long. And if they knocked another 80 minutes off, it would be just about perfect.
And the real bore of it all is, the thing that makes you want to stick your arms in a mincer, is that you know exactly what's going to happen next, which charming rogue you're going to meet on the road, which cuckolding temptress you're going to wind up married to for the next 100 years, and precisely which one of your battle-hungry, blood-crazed stepsons is going to do you in with a pillow when you're no longer fit to preside over a model railway set.
The story is old, but it goes on. And it's always a pleasure when it's well told. But when plots and characters are as insultingly stock as they are in Dragonball Evolution, you start fervently praying for a bit of Jodorowsky-style subversion, possibly involving the heroine, the Dark Lord, a sackful of syringes and a malnourished donkey called Carlos. This resembles a fever dream you might have had after slipping into an E-number-aggravated blood sugar crash while watching The Star Wars Trilogy. Dragonball Evolution is so derivative, such a bare-faced rip-off of George Lucas' pension, that it actually seems completely pointless to pick holes in it. You might as well just attack the originals for their myriad faults and get two birds with one stone.
"In an ancient time, Earth was nearly destroyed " begins the ponderous voice-over."Not by man, but by Gods from the sky..." Most dramas smuggle their exposition in via the dialogue. This one just ram raids it out of the store. For what it's worth, the story involves a young hero called Goku, played by the Westerner Justin Chatwin (slightly creepily playing an 18 year-old at age 26) who embarks on a quest for the titular world-saving Dragon Balls after his martial artist grandpa Gohan is killed off by the evil Lord Piccolo (Marsters, resembling an over-sized Jawa with food poisoning). Will Goku manage to harness the powerful force called Ki and confront his own werewolf side? Find Master Roshi - who trained grandpa in turn? Defeat Piccolo - probably the only villain named after a small flute? And win the love of ass-kicking classmate Chi Chi? Seriously?
There's probably a point to be made about the eternal exchange of cultural currency; Japan wresting back characters and plot lines from Lucas, then flogging them to the West again; Eastern aesthetics filtered through American sensibilities. But frankly, that's just the way the world works. The good news is this is only 84 minutes long. And if they knocked another 80 minutes off, it would be just about perfect.