That collective howl of anguish you hear is actually millions of seething anime fans who are demanding a public beheading of all who were involved in ruining their childhood fantasies by completely eviscerating Akira Toriyama’s worldwide manga phenomenon, Dragonball. Dragonball Evolution as directed with extreme blandness by James Wong and scripted with no sense of purpose by Ben Ramsey is a live-action film adaptation that fails to be anything more than a passing diversion for young toddlers.

Anyone with even a sliver of knowledge of Toriyama’s seminal manga is going to be infuriated at how insipid and completely juvenile the narrative has become. To be fair, the source material was never going to be compared to Shakespeare or even something closer to home such as the magnificent work coming out of Studio Ghibli (think 2D Pixar) but at least it offered its fans exciting martial arts combat and a cast of colourful eccentric characters.

In the hands of James Wong both these series assets have gone missing with martial arts routines that really accentuate the fact that no one has any clue what they are doing and characters that are flatter than a pancake in terms of personality. Right from the start the filmmakers stumble out of the gate with the greatly miscast Justin Chatwin playing our hero Goku, a teenage orphan that is raised by his grandfather Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) on their secluded estate. Let’s be straight up and frank here the decision to cast a Caucasian lead as Goku might rub many the wrong way but the problem is not really race but the fact that Chatwin has almost no charisma and is entirely wooden even during the fight sequences. Chatwin’s only bursts of raw emotion come from emo-baby tears and an altogether vein-popping visage of rage that looks more like he’s passing wind. It doesn’t help that the script glosses over his back-story, only giving the audience just enough motivation to propel him forward and though his character hits rough patches we’re never convinced of his emotional struggle as he returns to his cheery self a mere five minutes later.

As presented here, Goku, while still a teenager, is already an accomplished martial artist yet constantly endures bullying at school for being an outsider. Embarrassed and frustrated by his tormentors he dare not fight back due to Gohan’s strict conditions that he should never show his true power. Of course, like any other normal teenager, Goku has a secret crush on Chi Chi, a lovely though completely forgettable lass played by Jamie Chung who also harbors hidden feelings for him.

Just as his school life begins to take a turn for the positive Goku’s world is turned upside down when Gohan is murdered by Piccolo (James Marsters), an evil being who has managed to escape after thousands of years of imprisonment. Piccolo seeks revenge on the world and embarks on a quest to find the seven mystical dragonballs (think glowing orbs) that will grant him ultimate power. Goku deduces what is going on and vows to find the dragonballs before his nemesis with the intention on using them to grant “one perfect wish” and stop Piccolo and his nefarious scheme.

For the main antagonist, Piccolo is not at all menacing as Marsters lurches into a dry drooling delivery. It might have been more effective, albeit wholly cliché, if he just laughed maniacally as it would show some degree of rage. Instead he glares menacingly behind the laughable green makeup that wouldn’t scare a gnat.

In fact, Piccolo is largely wasted content to spend most of the movie firmly entrenched in his flying blimp-like ship waxing poetic about how he’s longed to unleash hell upon the world. All the grunt work is left to his henchwoman, Mai (Eriko Tamura) who at least presents a buxom figure in spandex and gets to mix it up in some of the martial arts sequences.

Along the way Goku hitches up with a spunky inventor named Bulma (Emmy Rossum), Yamcha (Joon Park) a roguish con artist and last but not least Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) a wise sage in the mold of Obi-Wan, except totally perverted and with a penchant for wearing loud Hawaiian shirts. Just writing those last few words is enough to make me laugh trying to picture Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi facing off against Darth Vader but enough of that fanboy moment.

Emmy Rossum’s career has certainly taken a turn for the worse here especially after her breakthrough in the movie musical Phantom of the Opera. Her Bulma is just not compelling and most of her dialogue consists of dreaded Star Trek technobabble that tries to sound scientific but ends up being hokey. For what it’s worth, Rossum certainly has Bulma’s look down pat as well as her cocky attitude but that one-dimensional trait isn’t enough to make audiences empathize with her.

About the only thespian that seems to be having a good time is Chow Yun-Fat who decides to throw caution to the wind and revert back to his manic film persona not seen since his early 1980s Hong Kong comedies. While the rest of the cast attempts to play it straight Chow Yun-Fat makes the easy realization that the material is inherently campy thus making the conscious decision to let it all hang out. This is the sign of a veteran actor who is not at all embarrassed at making a giant fool of himself and he injects needed verve and energy whenever he’s on screen. It’s too bad that his character is criminally underused.

For a lean movie that’s less than one and a half hours, Dragonball Evolution to its credit, is never bone-crushingly dull but there’s little coherency as scenes lurch forward without rhyme or reason. Small kids who are watching for the action will not notice but for everyone else the screenplay makes little or no sense with no concept of spatial relation or time passed. Fans of the manga will undoubtedly know that it takes Goku and friends a very long time to track down each successive dragonball but here they all basically fall right into his lap. Scenes are constructed that boggle the mind and stretch believability to ridiculous levels. At one point Goku, Bulma and Master Roshi fall into a giant pit created by Yamcha to blackmail errant travelers into giving him money to save them. After a bit of needless arguing Bulma suddenly realizes using her tracking device that there’s a dragonball nearby. Coincidence or just brainless writing? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Further along in the story Goku finds himself across a giant crater filled with molten lava with a dragonball located on the other side. He devises a “brilliant” plan of throwing evil mud-like villains into the lava and then proceeding to play hopscotch as he jumps from body to body until he arrives at his goal. The scene reminded me of the end of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and I wondered at the complete incongruity of anyone surviving the immense heat as they stood next to boiling lava not to mention the fact that those bodies Goku employs to jump on never burn in the least. What works in an anime or manga just looks totally phony on the silver screen.

In fact with no sense of passage of time it certainly feels as if Goku discovers nearly every dragonball in less than twenty minutes giving his quest an altogether empty and listless feel.

Kids might get a kick watching their heroes come to life but this production screams low-budget from the less than exciting visual effects to the laughable Paper Mache rocks and sparse set design the movie resembles a Disney family channel special. Actually, this is not a bad comparison as the film is so sanitized and squeaky clean that it feels like High School Musical with martial arts. Who knows, maybe if Goku and Master Roshi broke out into song and dance it might have made the film more engaging.

Director James Wong has shown he could write some tense and chilling science fiction fare before by penning many episodes of the X-Files and Millennium but his film directing skills are pure vanilla lacking any sort of stylistic flair. This was apparent even in his earlier films such as Final Destination or The One but he hits a dubious new low with Dragonball Evolution with ridiculously inappropriate static camera work that just does not make use of a film’s expanded canvas. Action scenes are choppily edited to hide the fact that none of the actors looks vaguely proficient in martial arts and even the final showdown that we anticipate is woefully flat and altogether anticlimactic.

Most of these young actors as well as Chow Yun-Fat will escape from this ordeal with their careers intact but it’s James Wong who will find his directorial career on the rocks with this slothful rambling disaster that manages the double whammy of insulting diehard Dragonball fans and the general public. You have been warned.

* out of ****

2009, USA/Hong Kong, 85 Minutes, PG
Directed by James Wong
Screenplay by Ben Ramsey
Based on the manga by Akira Toriyama
Produced by Stephen Chow
Executive Producer Tim Van Rellim
Original Music by Brian Tyler
Cinematography by Robert McLachlan
Film Editing by Matt Friedman, Chris G. Willingham

Goku: Justin Chatwin
Master Roshi: Chow Yun-Fat Chow
Bulma: Emmy Rossum
Chi Chi: Jamie Chung
Lord Piccolo: James Marsters
Yamcha: Joon Park
Mai: Eriko Tamura
Grandpa Gohan: Randall Duk Kim
Sifu Norris: Ernie Hudson
Carey Fuller: Texas Battle
Seki: Megumi Seki
Oozaru: Ian Whyte
Agundes: Richard Blake
Moreno: Jon Valera

© 2009 The Galactic Pillow