Unpopular Opinion: Evolution isn't too awful

[Animelover5487]

I just rewatched it today for the first time since it came out and it's not as bad as I remembered it being. I kind of like the concept, especially how Goku interacted with the students at his school (that is why I liked the filler in the early Boo arc where we got to watch Gohan attend school) and that fight Goku had with those bullies was kind of funny, I liked when they were all attacking him and they showed the teens moving in slow motion through Goku's eyes.

I liked how Bulma was more relevant in fights due to her super powerful gun which was able to nearly kill even Goku. I like female characters that are actually relevant in anime and it wasn't just Bulma. Chi-Chi and Mai also were put to descent use. Goku x Chi-Chi also actually got development here compared to Canon where Chi-Chi randomly fell in love with Goku and Goku just agreed to marry her on accident.

Master Roshi was kind of funny and I liked how the Kamehameha could do all sorts of tricks in this universe aside from offense.

I didn't like how Yamcha was handled though. They could have definitely did more with him, especially since he was a skilled martial artist who wasn't far behind Goku when they first met in canon. Also why is there no Kuririn? He's Goku's best friend.

Piccolo was a pretty generic villain but he didn't ruin the movie for me and I liked the concept of his relationship with Oozaru!Goku.

 

[SSJ3 Gothic]

Chow Yun Fat is a very good choice to play Roshi. He was underused and should have had a beard, but the caliber of the choice is top notch. Piccolo, Bloomers and Chi-Chi were also played by fine actors who fit the roles.

The overall art design and cinematography of the movie is well done, in my opinion. Bloomers throwing out a capsule, for example, looked good. A bit low budget but not laughably so.

The director is competent, having previously done Final Destination 2.

The biggest problem with this movie is a rushed, first draft script that was pushed in a month to keep the rights for the franchise at Fox. That, and the kid who played Goku was all wrong and never works for me.

But there are areas of the movie I find enjoyable and well done.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

especially how Goku interacted with the students at his school (that is why I liked the filler in the early Boo arc where we got to watch Gohan attend school)

The thing that made Gohan doing the same thing work though was because it was a new avenue for his character after having established his personality and background well, not to mention being a change of pace for the series in general. This doesn't work the same for DBE Goku as, not only is this not in line with the Goku known to most fans, but it being used for the first act of the film doesn't offer the same change of pace and instead establishes Geeku Goku as your generic urban fantasy teen protagonist, a very flat and milktoast characterisation compared to his anime/manga self.

In fact, that can be seen as a problem for all the characters as most of them are reduced to being pretty thin archetypes lacking in their unique personal traits; Chichi's change in background and personality ends up just making her the typical trope of "love interest who can kick ass" without the background that provided her with character flaws to give her personality, Roshi's pervertedness gets removed to make him not really any different from most mentors in Asian kung-fu flicks and Mai is just a henchwoman without much personality her actress was hot though ngl. DBE's main problem is changing things so much you can't avoid bringing up the Theseus' Ship paradox; with almost everything being changed except for terminology, can it really be called Dragon Ball? If we're looking at the film's quality from the idea of what it tried to accomplish (ie. allowing DB fans to experience the series they love in live action and get more people interested in the series), then it absolutely failed in that respect when completely rewriting every character can't really be seen as a respectful interpretation of the plot.
Even leaving aside changes from the source material, there's also some parts of the writing that range from questionable (eg. the very loose rules on what Ki can do to the point it acts as a deus ex machina to stop Goku from dying) to really stupid (eg. Goku not even having the slightest doubt in reviving Roshi and just leaving Gohan dead despite the circumstances being far different to in the RRA Arc).

I'd agree it isn't the worst film ever made, I can think of at least 2 or 3 films worse than it, and it's not without some merits such as the way capsules were used being the one change that worked when being brought into live-action. Still, it's hard to say it wasn't a really bad film when considering its thin plot, butchering of the source material and overall failure in its main goal to the point couldn't even hide his feelings about it and revived the franchise mainly to pave over this part of its legacy.

 

[SSJ3 Gothic]

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Lee is far worse in my opinion, which I bring up because it was released around the same time, has a similar vibe and similar budget, but that somehow managed to be even far removed from it's source material and looks even cheaper. Also, while I haven't seen Netflix's Death Note, it does seem to receive far more vitriol than DBE, which at this point is just looked at as forgettable at best.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Yeah, as far as live-action adaptions of Japanese IPs, it's far from being the absolute worst, though still definitely on the lower end of the scale and that sub-genre is a pretty low bar when considering it including such absolute flops as the Fist of the North Star live-action film.