Spoiler Alert: Dragonball Evolution Liveblog!

I feel bad for whoever's sitting behind me in this movie, 'cause I decided that since I failed to get to it on opening night, I'd liveblog it for y'all!

So first up, an intro. Semi-interesting visual, I'll give it that-- weird starry pseudo-constellation-y thingies.

"The first rule is that there are no rules" has got to be the dumbest first line of dialogue in a movie ever. Does not bode well. Must...keep...open...mind...

Close-up on Goku's sweaty face. He hasn't even started fighting yet, wtf? Also, his pants are kind of shiny even though they're like, sweatpants or something. Hmmm...

Glad I can type without looking. This would be a lot harder otherwise.  Goku handles being smashed into a watermelon well enough. But his grandfather just spat out one of those awful lines about relying on your inner senses rather than outer.

Now Goku is whining about how he's different and no one at his school likes him. Awwwwww. And he wants to be taught how to be normal. I was a weird kid, but I never asked my parents for that.

Introduction of the actual Dragon Balls themselves, right on Goku's birthday, of course. Why is it always so important that things start on a hero's birthday?

Goku bicycles his way into school now. Actually it looks like his scooter might be motorized...or might have been since it was just smashed by a guy who is most surely the biggest jock/jackass character of the movie. We won't be seeing him again, I'm sure. And yet for some mysterious reason, Chi Chi is banging him. (You know she is. Those jock guys don't date girls who don't put out, right?)

First sighting of Mai and then Lord Piccolo being mean to some Japanese people (yes, speaking real honest to god Japanese, including Mai. At least there's a reference.)

Okay, Goku's fantasies of Chi Chi sitting in a field of poppies and eating strawberries sexily are kind of cute, even if Goku then humiliates himself talking about Nameks in class. Then he uses his ki to help Chi Chi open her locker, which she actually recognizes as ki. (And says "just because my name is Chi Chi doesn't mean I'm an idiot." Are we supposed to expect that ki is something most people have heard of?)

Hokay, so Goku is trying for a James Dean look, and his hair springs back up even after slicking it back with grease, which is actually also pretty cute.  Now he's at Chi Chi's party that he was invited to and getting turned away by the geeks. But he stands up for himself, and the jocks surround him! Oh noes! He'll HAVE to fight! Self defense, right?

Nice way to avoid it-- he doesn't actually fight himself, he just evades in a way that the enemies fight each other. Actually makes for a rather creative fight scene.

I don't care what Variety thinks, THIS scene (against the jock) is every geek's fantasy-- totally showing up the school bullies who always picked on him without actually doing anything that makes him a bad guy and impressing the girl.

 Cute little high school romance scene. One of my companions says the movie needs more Zac Efron. But hey, he's already going to be in ONE incorrect anime movie adaptation (of course I'm talking about the Full Metal Panic movie he's in instead of Death Note).

How does Chi Chi know what ki is but still look totally mystified when Goku says that something's wrong with his grandpa and he has to go?

Goku finds grandpa's orange gi, and then...entrez Bulma! I do have to say, even though Emmy Rossum's commentary has been rather...insipid at times, she IS really pretty, and I don't hate her blue-streak hairdo.

Seriously? Mai had to use a jet pack to get the Dragon Ball out of Capsule Corp?!

Good one, Goku. "Durr...you must be a scientist." And he can't come back with a better way to sell himself to her than that she might need "backup"? He really IS kinda fail with the ladies. Actually overall I'd say he's a little flat in his line deliveries. Not that I want him to go super over the top, of course, but it'd be nice if he had a bit more variance in pitch. Though I guess he is trying to be all cool and stuff.

Everyone knows that guys who speak in near-monotone are cool, right? (That said, upon finding the house that Roshi presumably lives in, he did get a bit more variant. Hmm.)

Aaaand entrez Master Roshi. Chow Yun Fat is all ready to kick Goku's ass, which of course is going swimmingly as Goku is still padawan-level.

Haha, I forgot how much I liked seeing Bulma get smashed by Goku's poorly-aimed wind attack thinger. Also, lulz for Roshi failing to catch the mood and making Goku go all angsty about his grandpa. The tai chi poem is also pretty lulzy.

The flashbacks to Piccolo in the Dragon Balls are pretty trashy, visually speaking. It looks more like Power Rangers than a modern movie. Bulma's little entourage now adds Roshi, and Piccolo is takin' a shower. His hot Asian henchwoman is breathing all heavy-- bet I know what they've been up to!

I've only ever heard Emmy Rossum pretending to be British, and in American English she sounds like she's over-enunciating a little. It's kind of odd.

Aaand the trio runs into DChi CHi at a fighting training camp. Surprise! Chi Chi is a fighter too! On the way to a Dragon Ball Roshi is training Goku...almost exactly like Yoda trains Luke. Standing on one hand trying to move stuff with the force (well, ki instead of mind, but same diff).





Entrez Yamcha! Bulma tries to sex her way out of the trap hole he set up. Actually, seeing her try to be hot shit and getting burned IS very much like the manga...Yamcha sounds like a total cliche voice actor or something with his surfer-dude voice.

Mai is kinda cute, she's all shy and seems to desperately want Piccolo's affection. Piccolo has attached him to some kind of weird machine-- very awkward cut from one scene to the next, honestly. Also, Piccolo screams like a girl when giving blood, apparently. Ahh, the blood gave life to a monster, sweet!

Yamcha stands over a volcano and finds himself getting steamed like rice, like the dumbass he's supposed to be. Cue monsters' entrance and Bulma finally freaking out. Also, the monsters regenerate after having their asses kicked. They're pretty ugly dudes, all gooey looking. Somehow Roshi knows that the only way to stop these things is to drop them into lava, which proves pretty easy, apparently.

Goku being the clever boy he is, he comes up with using the monsters' corpses as a bridge to cross over the volcano and get the Dragon Ball-- but the shots of him jumping from body to body are really kind of awful looking. Some of the CG in this movie is gorgeous and some of it looks cheesy as hell, what gives?

Mai appears and tries to take on Goku, only to fail instantly. It's okay Mai, it's just because you're a girl-- you'll get to fight another female opponent later and you'll look less pathetic. I hope.

Master Roshi prepares to give up his life to help Goku with his stuff, and we transition to...Mai fighting Chi Chi in some kind of tournament. Why on earth would Mai be taking part in this thing?  Isn't she supposed to be kinda busy helping Piccolo out? Mai throws the battle aaand...ah, she swiped some of Chi Chi's blood. Guess she needs that to morph into other people.

Chi Chi knows she's hot shit. "Light those five torches and you can take one step towards me for each of them!" Then you'll be close enough for me to reach!" (I instantly added in "around" at the end of that line in my head.)

Hah, at the end of that scene he used his ki to put out all the torches while he kisses Chi Chi, and everyone goes "awww," and the next scene opens up with a bunch of chanting that mostly involves syllables like "ma" and "na," so it almost sounded like the movie was going "awww" with us. I wonder if that was intentional? Hard to give that much credit, but who knows?

Entrez Dark Chi Chi, aka Mai, and that whole Chi Chi fighting Chi Chi scene. Goku will, of course, be unable to tell which is the right one, and will probably make the wrong choice and smack the wrong one. I'd like to say it's because the movie's predictable but we did see this scene in the previews. Mai shoots Goku, then transforms back into her real hair-- interestingly she's still wearing Chi Chi's clothes and not her own. I wonder if she had to go out and buy that stuff? Does Piccolo have a budget for this enterprise? His flying tin can thing musta cost a fortune.

Nearly!Dead Goku's fantasies look kinda like Twilight, because he's all blue and stuff. Lame.

Some master dude reminds us that Roshi's going to sacrifice himself. If they don't do something surprising with that I'm going to be irritated. Mai looks all happy that she got the Dragon Balls for Piccolo, but she's also still kind of nervous. I wonder if he beats her. He shows almost no personality whatsoever, really, so I still think it's a total waste to use James Marsters. Almost anyone could have fit into that makeup and done lines sounding vaguely authoritative and creepy.

I also hate his outfit. Like, the cloak is okay, but what's with the baggy trousers? They look really weird. They looked weird in the promo shot too, but I thought maybe it was just that picture. But no, they're really just kinda weird looking. Mai's outfit with the keyhole is pretty hot though.

Mai is frantically collecting the Dragon Balls that Goku and team managed to scatter away from Piccolo. Goku appears in his classic orange gi, and now he's finally going to take on Piccolo, who reveals that Goku is going to become the demon Goku's been trying to keep Piccolo from summoning. I'd kind of forgotten to even mention what the actual plot of the movie is, sorry about that.

So, Goku has turned into an orange gi-wearing werewolf (seriously), and has now been commanded to try and get the Dragon Balls away from Bulma and Yamcha. Yamcha tries to sacrifice himself so Bulma can get away with the Ball, and I want ever so slightly to cry at the complete lack of pacing in character development. Roshi is trying to force Piccolo into a jar (what do you think he is, a djinn?), and Bulma bumps into Roshi. Doesn't that mean she's run exactly to where werewolf!Goku and Piccolo are? How dumb is she?

Okay, now that he's accidentally killed Roshi, werewolf!Goku turns back into human!Goku and reminds Piccolo that the only rule is that there are no rules (sigh). The two start dukin' it out with fun-colored energy blasts; Piccolo's are red and Goku's are blue. Color-coding for the action-scene-watching impaired. Bulma's having a shoot out with Mai, Piccolo and Goku are punching the shit out of each other in midair...I wonder what happened to Yamcha? I might have missed it.

Bulma offers the dragonball to Mai, but throws her some kind of machine instead, but it fails to kill the Hot Asian Henchwoman. But then she gets shot in the back of the head by Yamcha, only to have Bulma defiantly declare that she totally had things under control. Actually I'd say Bulma might be the closest to her original manga/anime counterpart...but I haven't watched or read a lot, so maybe I'm wrong.

Goku spits out a few more cliche'd lines about having faith in who he is, blah blah blah, and Piccolo talks about how human power has failed before (never mind that it locked him away in a cage for two thousand years), and...Goku unleashes the kamehameha! (You know, in Hawaii they have a king Kamehameha, but it's pronounced more like "kameamea"-- still, you see the name all over the islands, and it always makes me giggle.)

Suddenly the sun is shining and Goku struts out, his orange gi completely in tact despite his transforming into a werewolf twice his size. He then goes and collapses onto Roshi's legs, and it kind of looks like he wants to give the dead guy head. I'm sorry to put it that way, but that's how it looks.

Goku wants to use the one wish of the Dragon Balls to bring Roshi back to life, and he does this really shitty chant to try and get the Dragon Balls to do it. "DRAGOOOOON!"

It works, I guess, and the CG dragon looks better than pretty much all the rest of the cg we've seen, although still not totally amazing or anything. Pretty though. Roshi comes back to life, the dragon flies off into the sky and disappears, probably really annoyed that all he got to do was bring some annoying human back to life instead of getting to conquer the whole planet or whatever. Good times.

Okay, everyone's alive again, and Goku goes back to Chi Chi and is all like, "hey baby, guess who's got dragon balls?" (not really).  Really bad cutting on the kiss scene that ensues, but whatever. And they decide to fight. But we don't get to see who wins.