I’m a sucker for a bad movie. Classic sci-fi camp, gung-ho action, teen comedy, or any Nic Cage movie—I’ve seen it all. Twice. Something beautiful happens when an incompetent director has the opportunity to turn clichéd screenwriting and overly dramatic acting into a cinematic disaster. And when it happens, it’s bliss.
Dragonball: Evolution has all of the telltale signs of an epically awful movie. Poorly conceived idea? It’s a live action adaptation of a tweeny anime. Hilarious casting choices? Jamie Chung, of Real World: San Diego fame, plays a leading character. Movie title? Let’s just say not many Oscar winning films have colons in their titles (see: Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Bratz: The Movie, and, to a lesser extent, Colon Encounters).
I went to the theater confident that Dragonball: Evolution would set Hollywood’s low water mark for the foreseeable future. As the lights dimmed and I sat down, I was grinning in anticipation for the metaphorical train wreck I was about to witness.
Instead, I lost eighty-five minutes of my life waiting for the closing credits. I was pissed. I just watched a movie where a giant gorilla monster figured prominently into the plot, and I wasn’t even mildly entertained. How can you destroy the entertainment value of a giant gorilla monster? That’s as bad as casting Keanu Reeves in a live-action Cowboy Bebop remake. (Yes, this is actually happening.)
Dragonball: Evolution has one of those stereotypical scenes where the protagonist monologues mid-fight about his self-confidence issues, too. I love absurd speeches during the heat of battle, especially when the opponent is a rejected Star Trek villain with a leather fetish. Yet I was stone-faced when the protagonist Goku (Justin Chatwin) grimaced in a fashion typically reserved for the constipated and shouted through clenched teeth, “I must believe … in … who … I am!”
On the walk back to campus, I was more and more troubled about what I had just seen. Had Dragonball: Evolution ruined my taste for the unintentionally entertaining? I never thought that I’d see a movie bad enough to do so, but I was having second thoughts. My mind raced as I rushed home and turned on Rocky IV to find out for sure. A world without the comedy of Speed 2: Cruise Control or Leprechaun: In the Hood was not a world I wanted to see. Thanks to Sly Stallone and Carl Weathers, all of my worries disappeared. My love of bad movies was here to stay.
Next time I see a potential on-screen catastrophe (I’m looking at you, Fast and Furious), I’m going to keep my expectations low. After all, Dragonball: Evolution taught me that even the worst looking movies can disappoint.
