I’m sure everyone has heard of the fairly famous anime series known as Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z or Dragon Ball GT in their life time. Not only was it a pretty violent 80s-90s anime series, but it was also one of the longest running series ever to grace the television screen. We all love, remember, and adore all those infamous beam-spamming scenes and unrelenting hollering matches.

Much to my surprise I discovered back in March and April that they created an actual live action rendition of Dragon Ball…this movie being titled Dragon Ball: Evolution. If you don’t want anything divulged about this film because you haven’t seen it yet, then I would advise against reading this unless you like spoilers.

Overall I really liked the movie for its entertainment value; however, I found a lot of it to be quite inaccurate with the TV series…granted we all know that not every movie created (that has its own TV series) fits the history correctly. First and foremost…I do not remember seeing Goku’s grandfather ever making an appearance in the Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z series…by the time Goku was born…or at least 3 years of age, his grandfather was killed and this movie displays him as a teenager. So technically that aspect of the film sort of contradicted the rest of the Dragon Ball Universe—yeah that does bother me a lot, only because I grew up attuned to the series. Not to mention they kept pronouncing “Gohan” (Goku’s grandpa) wrong.

Anyway, other little pet peeves in the movie that really bothered me. First of all, Piccolo did not have any noticeable antennae…he’s a Namekian, you’d think those would be mandatory to have. Even though that was a major disappointment for his character I am really happy about the actor that was hired to play him. James Marsters; if most of you don’t recognize the name, you may remember him as the vampire Spike from the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was very impressed with his performance because he fit the character perfectly.

The other characters were done superbly as well. Goku seemed to have the exact same personality as his anime counterpart granted they mentioned nothing of him being a Saiyan, Bulma, Master Roshi, Chi-Chi and Yamcha also had personalities similar to that of their anime counterparts. One thing that really angered me though was the absence of the character Krillin…who is technically supposed to be Goku’s best friend and the most powerful of the human fighters.

Overall, I found the movie to be very entertaining; however, it has received a great deal of negative reaction from a lot of die hard Dragon Ball Z fans. Voting on IMDb has given it a rating around 3.3 out of 10. So if you are the type of Dragon Ball fan who isn’t to concerned with the movie following the anime universe, then you’ll probably like it. Although if you are a die hard fan who wants it to fit the series exactly, you’ll likely be disappointed.