Dragon Ball Super Movie: Broly - Reviews

I wasn't looking forward to this movie at all. After all that travesty Dragon Ball Super left a lot of bitter taste. Not to speak of Dragon Ball movies in general, which were subpar addition to the series, except the Future Trunk movie. However I have to say compared to the old Broly movie, this one is way better in every regard. I would argue it's even better than the Dragon Ball Super itself. You should watch it if you like either of those previously mentioned you're, I dare to say, guaranteed to have a good time. Following review contains some spoilers after this point.

The story has been improved a lot from the Old Broly. The backstory is different and it’s undeniably way better. It was done really well, it establishes revenge motivation of the Broly’s father towards King Vegeta and Vegeta way better than the old Broly movie ever did. There is also throwback to Goku’s father and his mother, but it’s in disregard to the Bardock’s short story. It was ok. I didn’t care that much about it.
After backstory arc, there is kind of introduction arc, that establishes additional characters and circumstances for the present time conflict. There is this funny moment in spirit of the first Dragonball, with Bulma and Freeza collecting Dragon Balls for petty desires. On that note I really liked Freeza in this movie, unlike in the Dragon Ball Super, he grow wise and embraces more a role of evil mastermind. He didn’t gave up his evil schemes, but he is going differently about how to achieve his goals.
Surprisingly we get rather unusually sympathetic members of “Freeza’s new army”, who discover Broly and his father. They also become friends with Broly, who is obedient to his father, who treats him more like dangerous weapon. Obviously they joined just to get a good job … under an evil galactic overlord. One of them was an alien girl, who was kind into Broly. I’m shipping them. It was a nice change of pace. There is not that much of that thing in the Dragon Ball.
Freeza, the only true villain in the movie, uses Broly and his father to get Goku and Vegeta. That is basically it, it’s just about this one long fight between Broly, Goku, Vegeta and Freeza. It’s the reason, why I’m not giving higher score the story, because the main plot is just for this fight, there is nothing more to the story.
The end is nice, happy end. For a fan service Dragon Ball fight movie is pretty good. The writer was so clever to disregard all useless characters from the past e.g. Kuririn. The Focus is on Goku and Vegeta.
As a movie in general there is nothing else to it than this.

After watching the Dragon Ball Super series, I stand still behind my evaluation, that the Dragon Ball Super has poor animation. Even if it’s been somewhat fixed in the second half of that series. This movie does good job on animation during fights including … cough …. CGI … cough. Honestly, I would argue it is better than Dragon Ball Super series.

Music I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s ok.

Overall it’s one of the best Dragon Ball movies, if not the best one. However saying that it doesn’t make it an exceptional movie.

Before this review, I just want to say that I have seen all of the old and new Dragon Ball movies, this one I think being a clear success compared to the others. The only other animated works of DB that I think were successful were the Bardock and the Trunks OVAs, and for good reason. They were focused on the character development during those story bits, and that's what allowed it to work so well.

When there are parts in the series that are about fights and conflict, its anime projects like this that turn out to be a nice surprise.

Story- Pretty simple and straight to the point, the dragonballs, which are being collected by Goku's group and Frieza's group, lead up to a confrontation between Goku, Vegeta, and Broly. The beginning part of the movie does a good job of reintroducing Broly to the Dragon Ball Super storyline. I think they did a good job making Broly look like a tragic character, and given how the movie ends, I feel pretty good about any future storylines with DB Super, even more so knowing that Broly will be coming back.

Animation- This has got to be one of the best animations for Dragon Ball period! All of the scale and the destruction during the fight. They do use some CGI but it looks okay for the most part. Toei does pretty well with animation if they're focused on a film, but they can get pretty lazy when it comes to long running series, but I won't get into specifics. The important thing is that they did the Broly movie justice and that's what matters.

Sound- The sound for the most part is done pretty well. There are even themes for the characters that sound pretty gnarly. Toei is known for recycling their sound effects, but the movie did pretty well in that category too.

Characters- Now the focus of the movie is all about reintroducing Broly directly to the series again. And that means revamping his backstory to do his character justice. Like in the original film King Vegeta deems Broly a threat and tries to get rid of him by sending him to a planet of monsters. Unlike the original Broly, the new Broly is much sympathetic, and personality wise, they've added to him. And now its looking like there will be a friendly rivalry between Goku and Broly now.

Overall- I am pretty much happy with how the film turned out. Overall, the new Broly film easily beats the old Broly film. It may be darker, but that in no way means that its better story wise, that I assure you. To all the DB fans, a good film, and may there be more in the future!

I am not going to bother with plot holes, since the movie retcons the backdrop of the Saiyans as well as a character who was not canon up until this point. No matter what I say about the changes, it won’t matter in terms of continuity and it’s not the first time Toriyama changed the origin of the Dragonballs or the cause behind the destruction of planet Vegeta.

I’m going to limit my impressions to plot aesthetics and say the way Saiyans are portrayed now makes them look like pansies. The 90s Saiyans were badasses and only cared about fighting and killing. There was no love and compassion or any of that nonsense. These here are soyboys, written that way to appeal to the new generation, pretty much the same thing that happened to superheroes in comics.

A weird thing about it, is how it doesn’t feel like a movie. Unlike a series, it doesn’t have the same main character in every scene and as such it feels like an anthology. It’s a pretty obvious indication for whenever they decide to continue the tv series, the first arc will obviously be the adaptation of this movie, since it was written like a series.

The plot stops jumping around in the second third of the movie, and it begins with the laziest way imaginable. Frieza’s men steal the Dragonballs from Bulma, exactly as they did in Resurrection of F. Why bother with new ideas when you can keep reusing the exact same ones in every movie? And speaking of lazy, they didn’t do a thing with any of the secondary cast. 90% of the characters don’t even appear, and Beerus turned from a terrifying god of destruction into a babysitter who does nothing to stop a monster capable of destroying the whole universe. Also, remember when he was bulling King Vegeta in the first movie? What happened to that plot point? He wasn’t shown in the past, and they didn’t elaborate on why he didn’t destroy the Saiyans himself. How lazy can you get?

And then it’s the comedy that tries so hard to be juvenile like it used to be in the original series, but it falls flat. Bulma wants to wish from the dragon to become a bit younger. Frieza wants to be a bit taller. Isn’t that funny? Maybe it would be, if they weren’t the exact same jokes and the quality of the writing didn’t turn to shit.

Anyways, Frieza randomly finds a Saiyan which just happens to be more powerful than any other villain so far, and Frieza feels like he can kill Vegeta without proving his worth. The non-canon Broly had destroyed a galaxy in the first seconds of the movie, so he had proven to be a major threat. This Broly was just fighting crabs all his life, thus he had nothing to show his threat level. Frieza’s reasoning is bullshit, but so is Dragonball Super as a whole, thus who gives a shit? Just sit back and watch Broly fighting Goku and Vegeta while constantly getting stronger, because power levels are bullshit and everyone only cares about the light show.

Toriyama tried to make it seem like Broly snapped after seeing the death of his father as some sort of an excuse to get super powerful in an instant, but since the emotions between father and son were convoluted, it wasn’t much of an excuse. On one hand Paragus loved his son and sacrificed a lot to find him, on the other hand he was using him as a tool for his revenge. And Broly on one hand hated his father for using him as a tool, but on the other he got really pissed when he died. You can’t even tell what the hell is going on.

Everybody loves the new Broly for having a personality and shit, and yet the older Broly made sense as a character because he was just a one-dimensional battle crazy maniac. Laugh all you want with his motivation for hating Goku being him crying a lot, but it still made more sense than the shit we see in the new Broly. I mean, he’s not someone who became the legendary super Saiyan by getting stronger as he was gradually destroying a whole freaking galaxy. He’s a mortal with zero battle experience who can kick the crap out of warriors with god ki which were constantly fighting and improving all their lives. Jumping from Average Joe to rivaling a god of destruction in a few minutes is what destroys all the gravity behind the concept of getting stronger.

And then comes the fan service moment of the movie by rehashing yet another transformation that wasn’t canon up until this point. Fusion dance is back, and so is Gogeta after a quick training session by Picolo. Because they didn’t think about getting potara earrings from the Kaio’s planet, or telling Beerus to stop being a babysitter and do something for a change. By the way, just like any power up in Super, it was meaningless since it never defeats the big bad. The battle ended with a plot device for yet another time, so basically the entire fight was meaningless. They could wish from the dragon to teleport Broly away since the very beginning.

So the fight is over and nothing makes any sense even then. Broly magically loses his anger when he returns to his planet. Frieza is allowed to leave and continue his galactic extermination. And nobody on Earth felt there was a fight going on, even after an entire ice continent vaporized and caused who knows how much climatic change. Oh, and the best part is how Broly is now a good guy and will fight along with Goku in a following arc. Because this is the modern Dragonball where we have to become good friends with everyone we fight. Isn’t that wonderful, children?

… What a load of crock.

As an avid lover of Dragonball and Broly I gotta say it was tolerable at best.  SPOILERS!!  They simply took to many short cuts explaining Brolys power and past. It makes Raditz story and explanation wrong if not a lie now in the beginning of Z to Goku.  Honestly the fights where okay to much CGI and whatever the Negative time shit with Gogeta and Broly was Garbage.   As much as I hate to admit it, this movie is exactly what I thought it was going to be.  Just and over hyped decent Dragonball movie that is just an excuse to make Broly and Gogeta relevant and cannon at the same time making a jumping point to the new series.  All in all original Broly movie has a better story, better art and much much better music. Seriously WTF was with the music.

*Minor Spoilers below* Stop reading, if you haven't watched the movie.

Dragon Ball Super Movie: Broly, is without any doubt the best Dragon Ball movie ever made, however it doesn't come without some flaws.

• CGI used during the main fight feels like rushed and lazy in execution. It would have made more sense to make more creative and unique fighting choreography just for the movie but creators decided to take the easy way out.

• Characters are all what viewer can expect at this point. Once again Goku was made to look completely clueless and goofy and suddenly he turned quite serious. The most ridiculous thing was how Beerus was missing in action and babysitting Bra.

• Music during the main battle is great, fast paced and suits the action just fine.

Overall its a good movie that you should definitely go watch if you like or used to like Dragon Ball.