Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

Last time on Animation Revelation…okay, no one on this site actually reviewed Battle of Gods. But Lord Dalek went over why Toei sucks as a studio in detailed fashion around the same time it was released in the U.S. last year, which sorta counts! And now, three fanboys stand to face the challenge of reviewing the franchise’s latest installment, “Resurrection ‘F'”! But is it a feature worthy of the franchise, or just a cheap cash-in to trick die-hard fans out of their cold-hard cash? Find out today, on ANIMATION REVELATION’S ANIMATION BLOG!! DA DA DA DA, DA DADA DA. DA DA DA DA. DA DADA DADA DADADA DA!!!

Dragon Ball Z is easily the most massively popular (and notoriously polarizing) property that has ever come out of the Japanese animation industry. Anyone who knows anything about anime has at least heard of it, and with a massive phenomenon of course comes numerous attempts to cash in on it. So despite being relatively dormant for most of the past two decades in terms of new content (outside of video games and some merchandise), it came as little surprise when 2013’s Battle of Gods rolled around in a very (financially) successful attempt to revitalize the franchise. Just a mere two years later, and we have a direct sequel in Resurrection ‘F’, which each of the three of us will be sharing our opinions on.

So then, let’s get one thing perfectly clear right away; all three of us are massive Dragon Ball fans, and have been since childhood. We thus feel obligated to make note of this, so as any incoming readers may be aware that there is more than a little bit of bias for us going into the movie. Being that this is a film made for diehard fans of the franchise first and foremost, we chose to judge the feature as enthusiasts of Dragon Ball rather than just as critics. This does not mean that we are blind to any flaws of the picture, but rather that our opinions are based more so on what we feel makes the movie work as a product within the franchise, rather than how it would stand on its own to complete newcomer (hint: this is a terrible jumping on point for any newcomers to the series). Keeping that in mind, the following reviews collect each of our individual thoughts on the latest Dragon Ball Z feature-length film to be released, as presented by FUNimation in North American theaters.

So, it has just occurred to me that at this point in my life, I have witnessed a brand new Dragon Ball Z feature-length film for the first time ever, and a good twelve years since the series finished its initial run on Toonami. If I were still 10-years old, I’d probably enter a hyper-manic episode from sheer excitement. Luckily I’m just a fully grown man who happens to have an unhealthy, fond love of cartoons. Of course, this also keeps me level-headed enough to actually have a sense of taste for what I watch. Putting nostalgic bias aside, I can tell when something is merely just pandering to an audience, when no effort is put into it, or when a movie is just flat-out bad in every regard.

Thus, when I watched this series’ first attempt (unfortunately, not in theaters) at jumping back toward being a relevant title among modern anime fans, the suitably titled Battle of Gods, I had a good time with it like most fans. Yet, I was not at all blind to its numerous problems, how it was a poor stand-alone film, and that it was not even necessarily a great Dragon Ball Z product given the franchise’s much higher pedigree during its peak. While I appreciated that film’s attempt to not only relive the glory days of DBZ, but to also hearken back to the charming, witty, and humorous nature of the earlier half of Akira Toriyama’s much acclaimed original manga, the fact remains that the bulk of that humor felt forced. It did not quite feel like something that Toriyama himself would write, and from an action standpoint it felt woefully anticlimactic.

In a sense, this all new sequel makes many of those same mistakes on a surface level, what with playing it rather safe and going for a similar tone to BOG. Yet, strangely enough I can’t help but feel that the film that I just watched was unquestionably a much more enjoyable product than the previous entry, at least from the standpoint of a long-time fan. Perhaps this may just be the enhanced effect of experiencing this picture on the big screen with a three-quarters full (to my honest surprise) auditorium of screaming DBZ fans surrounding me. However, the more that I think about the movie that I saw, I’m not quite so sure that’s the case.

First, let’s be clear that this is once again a film that’s clearly geared towards fans, and it does not work as a stand-alone piece for newcomers any better than Battle of Gods did. Even then, as a narrative of its own, it has numerous problems, some of which I’ll delve into a few paragraphs down. Keeping that in mind, what pleased me as I watched this movie is that when viewing it as a supplementary continuation to Dragon Ball Z as a series, it came off feeling like a much more rewarding experience. Whereas Toriyama’s involvement in BOG was more story-related, he had full hands-on involvement with the writing and screenplay of Resurrection F, and in many aspects that shows.

The plot, in essence, works as both a sequel to Battle of Gods, but also as a direct continuation of the most iconic story-line in all of Dragon Ball’s original 11-year run: the Namek arc (therwise known as the Freeza Saga). The story at hand deals with the revival of this iconic villain (by a new, but ultimately forgettable pair of minions, Sorbet and Tagoma), much as the title suitably suggests, and his plot for revenge against Son Goku and all of his friends and allies who helped to put him away in the first place. Yet, with Toriyama clearly wanting to pay loving tribute to Dragon Ball’s early comedic routes, it must be noted that this follow-up is not meant to be a super serious and dark battle of epic proportions akin to how the original Namek arc ended up. Rather, the very start of this feature perfectly sets up the tone for the entire story. This is Freeza’s Saga continued in the charming, fun-loving style of classic Dragon Ball. Thus, while there’s plenty of action to go around, you can be sure to see a slew of great wit injected into the dialogue and fights appearing on screen.

The opening shot in particular already had me and the auditorium chuckling with genuine delight as we witnessed a very Toriyama-esque depiction of Hell. Freeza was featured bound up, humiliatingly trapped in a cocoon while being surrounded by a swarm of colorful, fluffy, teddy-bear like creatures singing a harmonious tune to the torture of his sanity. This becomes one of a few great running gags throughout the film as the mighty Lord Freeza recounts about how those freaking things drove him insane. This is clearly Toriyama’s sense of humor at work, as if he were continuing the manga once more, as opposed to the forced nature of the comedy in BOG. The rest of the film is also full of great auditory and visual gags. I obviously don’t want to spoil them all, but one moment that particularly stood out to me was Piccolo toying with some of Freeza’s soldiers by casually asking them to catch his weighted training clothes only to see an entire group of them collapse under the mass of just his cape. Vegeta’s mocking comment Goku’s intelligence (or lack thereof) got a particularly huge laugh from the crowd. And of course there were a ton of loving, as well as hilarious callbacks to previously-established Dragon Ball lore, most notably pertaining to Freeza. Additionally, Jaco (making his anime debut, and first appearing in the Dragon Ball spin-off comic Jaco the Galactic Patrolman) was an absolute blast, being extremely well-received by the fans, especially when he had his numerous quips with familiar characters.

One of the wise things that this film did, once again as opposed to BOG, was to actually cut out a fair chunk of the cast so as to give a bit more focus to a core group of characters. We didn’t see Yamcha, Oolong, Goten, or various other familiar faces because there really was no need for them. That said, I consider it a bit of a missed opportunity for Freeza to not at least encounter present-day Trunks, just for the pleasure of witnessing his reaction to the youthful version of the character who officially killed him off in the classic series. Majin Buu would have made for an interesting appearance as well, with Freeza clearly aware that he was one of the few beings in the Universe that he was warned to never mess with by his own father. To be fair, though, while those would have been fun gags to see, I can understand that it wasn’t worth adding in those characters to the film for just that purpose alone.

What’s possibly even better than the humor of the film is that we finally get to see many of the supporting characters who appear on screen actually do some good old-fashioned fighting of their own. Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Ten-Shinhan, newcomer Jaco, and good god yes, even Master Roshi (for the first glorious time in decades), get a series of pretty great and very well-animated action scenes where they take on the full force of Freeza’s army. It’s both great fan-service and a great moment. However, it does bring up one of my minor gripes with both the movie and Toriyama’s work in general, which is that there is practically no sense of logic to the ability of the characters in here. What I mean is that Toriyama and/or the people involved with making this film clearly somehow seem to forget that both Gohan and Piccolo are well above the level of an average Super Saiyan. Taking on Freeza’s men should have been relatively trivial for just either of the two of them alone, whereas it at least made sense for the other characters to struggle against that kind of manpower, somewhat. Furthermore, why does Gohan even go into his Super-Saiyan form when it was already established that he had achieved another form of power that had surpassed the use of that transformation way back in the Majin Buu arc of DBZ? It’s little things like that which irk me somewhat as a fan, but admittedly it’s a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things. After all, paying that small price comes with the benefit of getting to see some of my favorite supporting characters from early Dragon Ball get their time in the spotlight again after so many years (as brief as that may be).

All of this fun stuff is just a warm-up, of course, before transitioning into the second half of the film where Goku (along with Vegeta) arrives fashionably late to the party to bail the other characters out, as is series tradition. And while there are tons of great moments in this half of the movie as well, it bares noting that this is also where many of my issues with the film come into fruition. On the positive side of things, seeing Goku and Vegeta further act out their rivalry is a ton of fun, and having Goku face off against Freeza one more time is amazing to behold. Granted that you can’t expect to receive the same kind of spine-tingling chill that you got from their epic encounter on Namek in the span of just a single film, and given the tone of this movie, they wisely don’t choose to play up the fight that way. Rather, this is presented more as an appropriate grudge match between the two, with each being on a similar level and having a well-balanced, evenly-sided battle. That said, while the 2D animation of this film (admittedly being far from some of the best out there) is very fluid and a treat to behold, the film’s use of CG animation intercut with the traditional hand-drawn style is honestly pretty bad. This is nothing new, given how BOG had the same problem, but it’s disappointing that in the sequel they still haven’t managed to fix this problem at all. It’s one of those few things that reminds me that this is still a Toei Animation production, and that company just loves to cut corners, even with an event film such as this. Whether it was time or budget-constraints, or both, the poorly done CG effects really took me out of the experience briefly, each time that they came up in a noticeable way.

Adding to the spectrum of issues, while most of mine are minor, the whole Goku vs. Freeza conflict brings up one of my few major problems with the picture, which is its narrative theme. Even as a continuation to the series, any good film should have a distinguishable stand-alone theme to its narrative to set it apart as its own piece of the story. The problem is that what this movie does is essentially just ripped directly from BOG, making it feel like Goku never learns anything. In the previous installment, we appropriately got to see an old aspect of the series come back into relevancy with Goku taking on Lord Beerus and learning that he was still far from the strongest in the Universe. It hearkens back to a lesson that Master Roshi taught Goku way back when the series’ was still in its initial year of publication: that no matter how strong you get, there is always someone better than you to overcome. It’s not that I have an issue with this film continuing that theme, with Goku realizing that it’s not right to underestimate Freeza. Rather, the problem is that the way it is executed in the film feels both like Goku didn’t learn anything from his previous encounter with Beerus, and also that this whole message of Goku’s overconfidence comes in the form of a very abrupt and rushed final ending that I honestly did not like at all. I will, however, refrain from delving into it to avoid spoilers for those who have not watched the film. It’s a brilliant concept for what it could have been if handled better, at least, so I’ll give it that much.

We also get to see new forms for Goku and Freeza, of course (which isn’t a spoiler seeing as how it’s one of the main advertising points of this movie). I’m sure most people interested in this feature have already seen images of the strangely named “Supersaiyan God Supersaiyan” form of Goku (so, basically just a Super Saiyan with blue hair), as well as the “Golden Freeza” form (so, basically just a color palette swap of Freeza’s final form). They are honestly rather underwhelming and unimaginative, but they suit their need in the story just fine. Beerus and Whis also make their returns in this film, but disappointingly aren’t given anything of real significance to do outside of just one scene that I once again must avoid talking about for spoiler reasons.

Finally, one other major point of contention that I have with this picture is the same one that I had with BOG: it just plays things way too safe. I don’t mind so much that most of the movie feels rather anti-climactic and devoid of tension, because once again that’s just the tone that they were going for, and by nature this was a series that was designed for longer story arcs. I realize that a single film can’t possibly capture the same feel of the actual series. Even so, it still could be a bit more experimental and try to help evolve the franchise for modern fans, what with aspects of character growth or finding a way to make the battles more than just power struggles. On the one hand, it doesn’t directly hurt the film in and of itself, but in another regard, it does harm the potential for this series to continue to grow and stay relevant as time goes on. This will be even more important once older fans start to diminish and it’s only left with a newer audience to try and appeal to.

But, to close out this review on a more positive point, let’s lastly look at the titular villain and true star of the film, Freeza himself. I’m happy to say that he’s fully realized in this movie and easily my favorite character in the entire piece. His callbacks to previous events of the Namek arc throughout the feature, as well as tying him in with the extended Dragon Ball mythos (including his awareness of Lord Beerus), really helps to re-establish him as a very core part of the many great things about Dragon Ball. It also further cements him as the most memorable villain in the series. I really must give Chris Ayres props for reprising his excellent portrayal of the character, who he took the role of ever since Dragaon Ball Z Kai. The entire dub in general is fantastic, and it’s so great to hear many of the voices that I grew up with in my childhood still playing these same characters. Although, this is no surprise given how great they were in BOG last year. However, Chris Ayres steals the show with his return as Lord Freeza, and this alone made the movie worth the price of admission for me (but the great, humorous writing from Toriyama didn’t hurt either, of course).

Despite all of my complaints and issues, I must once again go back to what I said earlier about viewing this film as a DBZ fan rather than as a critic. I won’t lie, this is far from a perfect or great piece of cinema in any regard, but nevertheless, I walked out of the theater amidst other DBZ fans with a huge grin on my face. On a base level, I was very pleased with the experience that I had. Toriyama and Toei Animation set out to make a new movie that would make long-time fans happy, and on that level they certainly accomplished their task. The humor of the film felt fun and genuine, the action (aside from the bad CG) felt spectacular and larger than life, and the overall package had me thoroughly entertained from start to finish.

Now, putting my personal love for the series aside, if you are a more casual fan of Dragon Ball who is curious about viewing this film, I would still recommend it, but do expect to have some of the problems with it bother you more than they did for me. If you are by some chance a complete newcomer to the franchise, then this movie is definitely NOT the place for you to jump into it. – Dr. Ensatsu-ken

Second Opinion!

Akira Toriyama has returned to his hit series Dragonball in a sequel to 2013 hit Battle of Gods in his new film Resurrection ‘F’.

During the era of peace after the Buu saga Freeza’s men, dubbed the “Freeza Force” has had their hands full trying to maintain their iron grip on the galaxy without their master, and in desperation went to earth and risk and encounter with Goku to revive their old master. They encounter Pilaf on his quest for the Dragonballs and get his help to collect the Dragonballs. Wishes are made, and Freeza (with an awesome metal track by Maximum Hormone) is revived. He then travels to Earth to get his revenge, but not before a four month training session to fill the gap between his powers and theirs.

The movie is really good at establishing his (admittedly simple) motivation. He was beaten by the Saiyans, the ‘monkeys’ he looks down upon, he will not, nor never, let that go. He is both too arrogant and too childish to let that go. It reminds me of when he came back right before the Android saga with his father King Cold (who gets an amusing mention several times) where the frosty king was practically holding him back. I like Freeza as an antagonist to this film. It feels like an interesting call back, and a nice what-if, to back then. There are a lot of allusions to other moments to Dragonball. Not just Freezas aformentioned first return, but to Pilaf’s service to a far larger villain ala King Piccolo, to the climaxes repeat of a certain scene in Namek, albeit with differing results. Call backs like these do well on their own, but to someone who picks them up that makes it all the more rewarding.

But call backs alone don’t make a movie, characters do. Practically everyone who ever had a role in Dragonball, barring Chiaotzu and Yamcha and several others, make a grand return in what might be one of the greatest sequences I have ever seen put into Dragonball. But wait, there’s more. Has anyone ever read a short tale called ‘Jaco: The Galactic Patrolman’? It was a 2013 serialization, of Toriyamas latest, and presumably FINAL work. In it there’s an amusing alien named Jaco, who has come to Earth to do, something. I won’t say what, but go read it, it’s alot of fun. But disregarding that Jacos appearance is not anymore shoehorned in than any of the other cast. He feels like he should belong there. And he has such great chemistry with the cast especially Krillin (who has become a cop himself). Speaking of Krillin there was a nice short scene with 18 that made my heart aflutter. It really shows how in love these two are, and how much they care for another. Like I said short, but sweet.

The two main stars of course are Goku and Vegeta. After the events of Battle of Gods they have spent their time on Whis’ planet training to master God form (presumably Vegeta got it off screen). It is highly amusing seeing Beerus and Whis, they are a perfect addition to the Dragonball mythos. And one of the things I appreciated most was the time devoted to Whis’ power. You see while Beerus is a god, Whis is something far more powerful. His training session with the two Saiyans shows just how far Goku (and Vegeta) has to climb if he can ever reach that summit.

Dragonball has this reputation of not being a deep series. I can see it, but disagree entirely. Battle of Gods had a theme that Goku has a long road to travel to be the strongest, and that even if he becomes the strongest in one place, he’ll never truly be the strongest. It was truly something that needed to be said after accusations of the misconception of Gokus seemingly unlimited power. But I digress. Weakness is the name of the game this movie. Not just physical weakness, but weakness in character. After the training session with Whis we get a moment to analyze what their fighting forms lack. But what stood out to me was that even Beerus has weakness in his form. And this is a thing throughout the movie. Everyone whether stated or otherwise has their weakness’ revealed, including and especially Freeza. And that is what makes this movie great. We analyzed where these characters lack. We see what makes them tick. Goku even has what has been a long time complaint of his character brought forth. Having these movies be after the end, AND written by Toriyama himself gives these characters development. For what has been a movie after the end these chracters have grown, and I really love that. I won’t spoil Freeza’s weakness, but I will say that a little patience, or heck even maturity goes a long way.

What went wrong in this movie rests solely in who kills Freeza. The build up and the poetry of who should kill Freeza, versus who actually kills him can leave a little bitter taste in the mouth. Again I won’t spoil, but it’s something I feel could be corrected in Super. Another point of contention is what some would call a Deus ex Machina. I personally wouldn’t say that, for it did have build up, but it would leave you dumbfounded. And to be honest one could actually see it, with the right perspective, as an outright parody of a Deus ex Machina, especially considering who does it.

So is Resurrection ‘F’ good? It is beyond my expectations. The marketing really played up the action, which the movie has alot of, but the humor and the character development felt equally as important. Right now this sits at a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I wouldn’t mind if it stayed that way. It is also on it’s way to cracking the top 10 of theatrically released films, including Miyazaki films. Funimation believes that this can make people take the anime market more seriously, and I do too. This movie is a delight, and to me equals Battle of Gods in its brilliance, and come time I WILL buy it on Bluray.

‘Resurrection F’ is in theaters until August 12 so get your tickets soon.  Final Score: 9/10 – LordGoku

Third Opinion!

Before I begin my review of the latest theatrical feature in the seemingly immortal Dragon Ball franchise, I feel obligated to mention and discuss the “pre-show” FUNimation so curiously decided to attach to it’s start. Not just the pre-show itself, but the experience of being in the theater with other people listening to, nay, enduring the damn thing in all it’s glorious and bizarre frivolousness. And yes, it is worth talking about. It was a part of my movie experience just as much as the film itself, and a moment of zen that I won’t soon forget. So think of this as a “pre-review” of sorts. Hey, at least you have the freedom to skip ahead to the actual review, and don’t have to sit there slogging through this for 15 minutes.

Now, I saw this film in an AMC theatre, and usually in an AMC theatre they have a pre-showtime feature called “First Look” where they show behind-the-scenes looks at upcoming films and television shows. Also the same old Coke and Android commercials again and again. None of that this time. I guess because this is a Fathom Events showing, idk, I’ve never been to one in my local hometown AMC theatre before. Last year I drove an hour for what was the nearest theatre to my house to see Battle of Gods. So hey, I could deal with just staring at a graphics loop of various theatre platitudes over and over again until the movie started. But then, when that stopped, they told us “we hope you enjoyed these previews!” (paraphrasing here). Uh, what previews? You didn’t show anything! I literally yelled that out loud in the theater. A woman sitting behind me also agreed with my sentiments. Though she used more colorful language than I. After waiting 15 minutes for the movie to start, everyone was excited to finally see the film…until they all realized that they still had to wait another 15 minutes for it to start. Only a couple of people besides myself knew the pre-show was coming before-hand; most were just scratching their heads at what they were seeing on the screen.

So what, exactly, was the pre-show? Basically a hodgepodge of things that no one wanted to see or hear. To be fair, it begins kinda interesting. We see a recording session with Chris Ayres doing some of Freeza’s lines from the film. Now, I have no clue why they chose to show him doing some of his funniest and spoilerific lines in particular, but it’s still rather cool to see. But then it moves on to showing every fucking voice actor for the dub, including Sean Schemel, Chris Sabat, Ian Sinclair, Jason Douglas, Sonny Strait, & Monica Rial, all voice their thoughts on Freeza as a character, and then their thoughts on the film. This segment was just embarrassing. All the actors just give basic, shallow opinions about what makes Freeza a good villain and what’s cool about his return in the film, and the segment goes on so long that it gets annoying to listen to.

You think after that’s done they’d move on from trying to hype up Freeza, but no. Instead they dive into an elaborate graphics sequence that essentially details the entire history of the character in the series in painstaking detail. I’m not sure why FUNimation thought this necessary. Everybody going to see the film was surely already a Dragon Ball fan and knew the character, and didn’t need a history lesson to remind them. It’s made even worse when they immediately spoil the movie by showing scenes of Freeza from the film, including ones with him in his Golden Freeza form, while re-iterating yet again how awesome sugoi Freeza is and why it’s such a big deal that he’s been brought back to life and how this movie would be epic and shit. This entire segment of the pre-show felt extremely desperate to hype up Freeza and the film for the theater audience that it had the opposite effect. All it did was deflate everyone’s enthusiasm for the film by spoiling cool scenes and making Freeza out to be a big deal, despite every DB fan everywhere being skeptical that Freeza could really be much of a threat. Bottom line was that no one going to see the movie needed to be made more excited to see the film, especially with such a artificial and overenthusiastic, redundant and long video that feels didactic rather than entertaining.

But then comes the most surreal part of the entire thing. Yep, even after going so far as to spoil the film they were trying to hype, FUNimation apparently thought they needed something more to “have fun and interact” with the fans. So we are treated to a long, long quiz-show segment done, complete with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?-style graphics, as Justin Rojas asks every core DBZ VA in the film about 8 Dragon Ball-related trivia questions. Remember how I said that the interviews from the previous segment were embarrassing. Well scratch that; this is the motherload of awkwardness and bewilderment. The questions themselves are absolute jokes; anyone with even a basic knowledge of DB could answer them in a second, that’s how easy they are. So the fact that so many of the actors, including people working on DB for almost 20 years, seemed to have no clue how to answer any of them was incredibly amusing to everyone in the theater. To go over each of the questions would take too long, but to give you an idea, one of the questions was “What animal is Gregory?” Yes, seriously. No one answered correctly. Yes, seriously. Monica Rial thought he was the turtle. It’s not just the fact that they struggled with these, but how exaggerated and quirky their thought processes were. Of note was how Monica Rial would always answer the questions in a extremely squeaky, unsure tone. People found this very amusing. It was only at the end, with the last question, did the audience’s amusement and eye-rolls stop and go “huh, wait a minute?” That question being “How many planets has Freeza conquered?” There were aa bunch of hard-core DB fans in the audience, and I don’t think anyone guessed it right. The fact it was an actually challenging question made it a good capper for the whole spiel, and got people to start to pay attention again.

Unfortunately, the pre-show was still going, to everybody’s surprise. Yes, now was the moment everyone expected to happen; trailers for FUNimation products. Though, honestly, this was the best part of the entire thing. FUNi previewed four films they were planning to give limited theatrical screenings later this year and in early 2016; Psycho-Pass the movie, the Ghost in the Shell: Arise movie, Mamoru Hosada’s The Boy and the Beast, and of course, the live-action Attack on Titan movie. They did a good job of making them all look awesome, and made me extremely excited about seeing them when they come out, hopefully in theaters. This was the shortest part of the entire pre-show, but it was unarguably the most effective part.

After sitting through it, I have no idea why FUNimation even made a pre-show in the first place. I guess they wanted to hype the movie before the movie, but they really didn’t need to do that. The Freeza-hyping section of the thing worked to deflate the patience and interest of everyone in the audience. The way it went so overboard in describing Freeza and his history while spoiling scenes from the movie made it confusing as to who FUNi was making this for, since the only people who’d go and see this film would already be DB fans who, again, don’t need to be told any of this. Everyone tuned out the quiz show segment completely, those who didn’t only watching it to make fun of it. Only the trailers portion actually got people to pay attention to the screen and get people excited about something. In short, the whole thing just felt gimmicky and frivolous; something annoying you had to sit through to get to what you came to see. While it was amusing for how woefully misguided and awkward it was, FUNi really shouldn’t bother doing something like this ever again. Resurrection ‘F’ was easy enough to understand without needing a whole history on who Freeza was, and enough to get excited about that there didn’t need to be what was essentially a 15-minute trailer for the movie before the movie. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad FUNimation is so eager to engage with and connect with their audience and make all these features and stuff. But next time I hope they limit this stuff to their youtube page, and don’t put it on the big screen.

On that subject, with this “pre-review” out of the way, let’s get on to what you actually wanted to read – the review of the film itself!

When Resurrection ‘F’ was first announced last summer, Akira Toriyama stated that the film was going to be “utterly funny.” Sure enough, the first scene of the film, showing Freeza’s “torture” in hell, reflects those sentiments exactly, and perfectly sets the tone of the rest of the film. I think the difference in intention is critical in understanding this film and Battle of Gods in contrast to previous DBZ theatrical-outings. In the original 13-movies, Toei emphasized fighting and cool villains to be fought, with a mostly serious tone with some sprinkles of humor through the presence of designated comic relief characters. The goal was to please the fans who loved the series for it’s visceral, exciting action; hence why so much of them were comprised of a string of fight scenes with only a thin plot to tie them all together into a semi-coherent narrative. With the exception of maybe the first Broly movie, these films weren’t meant to explore characters, concepts, or the world of DB, and were mostly churned out as cash-in products in the same manner as most shonen franchise movies tend to be nowadays.

Battle of Gods, made to roughly coincide with the franchise 30th anniversary, could’ve been another frivolous outing along these lines. However, the overwhelming financial and critical success of One Piece’s 10th film, “Strong World,” which was written by the series’ own mangaka, seemed to have got Toei thinking. If an Oda-written OP film could be so successful, then surely a Toriyama-written DB film would do as well if not better. Ultimately, they didn’t get Toriyama to actually write the film, but he did outline the story and draw the character designs for Beerus and Whis, and had some involvement in the early screenwriting stages. BOG was a success, and Toriyama, inspired with a new idea for the series after listening to a Maximum the Hormone concert, decided to write the script for a follow-up film himself. Which brings us to Resurrection ‘F’, and why, out of all the DBZ films made so far, including Battle of Gods, it feels the most true to the spirit, humor, and characters of Toriyama’s epic.

Don’t get me wrong; Battle of Gods was a brilliant and funny film, and of that there’s no question. I re-watched the movie right before I left to see ROF, and I still got plenty of belly laughs from it even though it had to be the fourth or fifth time I’d seen it in it’s entirety. Still, as strong and well-written as the humor in the movie was, it wasn’t quite Toriyama humor. It was lacking in the quirkiness, the exaggerated silliness, and the casualty of the character interactions that characterizes Toriyama’s comedy. There’s a certain feel of spontaneity and randomness to Toriyama’s work. Not in the sense that something totally bizarre just happens out of nowhere, but in the way gags play out, characters talk to each other, conversations begin and end, and how scenes flow one to another. Toryiama has a distinct style of writing and comedic timing that pervades his manga, and is frankly, inimitable by other writers no matter how much they try to mimic it. Battle of Gods has a lot of humor and character interactions that hearkened back to the early days of Dragon Ball, but it felt like it was trying to do that. The moments were enjoyable, but they didn’t feel natural. A representative of Shueshia once told former Viz editor and esteemed manga critic Jason Thompson that the only man that could draw Dragon Ball – the real Dragon Ball – was Akira Toriyama. Battle of Gods was the best damn attempt I’ve seen for someone to try to create a new DB story that genuinely felt like it, and it worked in large part because of the fact that Toriyama thought up the premise and the writers put in a lot of effort to make it a celebratory film. It came close, but at the end of the day, that Shueshia representative couldn’t have been more right. The only man that can truly make more Dragon Ball is the man who made it in the first place.

Resurrection ‘F’ was directly written by Toriyama, and it shows. As someone who has versed himself in every manga the manga has drawn he could find, and having re-read both Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball a half a dozen times each, I will tell you that there is no Dragon Ball film that more closely captures the spirit and tone of the original manga and Toriyama’s work more than this one. From that brilliant first scene to the last, this movie flows like one of Toriyama’s manga would; fluid, directionless, witty, and creative. Not every joke in the movie works, mind you. There’s some bits with the Pilaf Gang at the beginning in particular that honestly kinda grate, which is a shame since Toriyama seems to love the character well. But even with the jokes that don’t work, all of the humor still feels like it’s something Toriyama wrote, right down to including a Toriyama staple, a poop joke (admittedly more of a fixture of Dr. Slump, but the execution was more DB-ish). And that works to the film’s advantage; it’s as clever, witty, sharp, creative, and inspired as a Toriyama story is and should be. It doesn’t just feel reminiscent of early Dragon Ball; it feels reminiscent of Toriyama at his peak of his creativity – which include the later years of Dr. Slump AND the early years of DB. Moreso than it is a DB product, it’s a Toriyama one. The fact that it’s so creatively driven, instead of most franchise movies being profit-minded, is what makes it feel so fresh, funny, and just fun compared to all those DB movie outings from the 90s, and the way the beats of the story flow so naturally from one to the next in the way distinctly Toriyama is what gives it a leg up on BOG as a sequel. If you’re going into the movie expecting to laugh and as a fan of Toriyama’s sense of humor, you won’t be disappointed.

Humor, however, is only one aspect to this movie, and beyond it the film has a few more strengths, but also a fair amount of weaknesses. One aspect the movie absolutely shines in, though, is the presentation of all the characters involved. Though BOG featured most of the recurring characters in some fashion, ROF keeps the cast small. This works to it’s favor, as it gives each one of the protagonists in the film a chance to shine and show off. For the supporting characters, this mostly comes in the form of the fight scene between the Z-fighters and the Freeza forces, which features Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Tenshinhan, Master Roshi, and newcomer Jaco (the titular protagonist from a manga Toriyama published in Weekly Shonen Jump back in 2013) take on multiple enemies all at once in a series of fight scenes that are not the most inspired to ever be shown in a Dragon Ball film, but also some of the best executed in any animated adaption of the franchise to date.

Each one of the characters get a moment to be awesome, and participate in the film’s humor in a way that feels natural to their characters and doesn’t portray them in a joking light. In particular, Master Roshi gets wonderful treatment in the movie, taking out lots of Freeza’s soldiers by himself in a badass way, whereas a Z-movie written by anyone else might have just made him a comic relief joke character in this situation, like he was in The Return of Cooler. The biggest scene-stealer of the movie was Jaco himself, who seamlessly become a natural, welcome member of the cast within minutes of his introduction, with excellent character interactions with Bulma and Krillin in particular. The audience I was with quickly went from being confused about who he was to loving the hell out of him. Safe to say, this movie is going to make Jaco a fan-favorite among DB fans the world over, and the character is sure to get more prominent appearances in future DB stories, including the currently-airing Super.

But the real star of the movie, naturally, is Freeza himself. The film is aware that neither the audience or the characters can genuinely take Freeza seriously as a threat after the power-ups everyone has gotten since his defeat, so the movie intentionally walks the line with his character. Despite what some might have feared, Freeza’s character is true to his previous appearances in the series. He’s as vain, sadistic, calculating, narcissistic, and confident as he was before. The difference is, while in the Namek arc these aspects of Freeza’s character complimented the enigma and threat of his power, here it makes light of what a spoiled daddy’s boy he really was. Throughout the film the fun of Freeza’s character comes in he still thinks he’s the best and he’s in control, basically Freeza being Freeza, and how that overconfidence leads him to get made fun of without him even knowing it and, ultimately, humiliatingly defeated once again. Chris Ayres absolutely nails Freeza’s character in the film and executes every line of dialogue to maximum comedic effect. If you’re a fan of Freeza as a character, this film manages to reflect what makes him such a great villain while still find ways to take the piss out of him, carefully balanced in a way I don’t think could’ve been done better.

Not everything about the character writing is perfect, though, Obviously, there’s the issue of power levels, what with everyone except Roshi and Jaco supposed to be leagues stronger than the average Freeza soldier. Roshi has the opposite problem, since presumably he should be weaker than one considering he lost against King Piccolo, making it kinda strange they thought to bring him along and not Yamcha. Then again, Master Roshi has actually won fights in the series before, so in that sense it’s honestly more believable that he’d put up more of a fight against Freeza’s grunts than the latter no matter how strong he is relatively. There is no satisfying answer to these continuity problems, so I think it’s best not to think too hard about them. Power levels were always loosely defined anyway.

The only criticism about power levels in the film that I think is invalid would be about Gohan. It’s clearly stated in the film that he hasn’t trained at all since the fight with Buu and as a result he lost the ability to tap into the full potential the Old Kai unlocked for him. It doesn’t matter how strong Gohan was before; if he didn’t keep up his training, he would lose it after a long period of time. It is a little strange he became so out of shape to the point that he could only barely go Super Saiyan in the film, but I guess great power like that is much quicker to lose than it is otherwise. This would also explain why Piccolo and Krillin were having so much of a hard time in their fights too, since they presumably haven’t been training, whereas Tenshinhan and Master Roshi never stop, even though they don’t do it as regularly or as hard as Goku and Vegeta do. In any case, if you’re a Gohan fan, you might not like how he’s basically treated like a joke in the film (Freeza, in his base form, one-shots him with a sucker punch so bad that he would’ve died if he hadn’t been given a senzu bean), but I kinda enjoyed seeing him portrayed the way he was. Besides Gohan, Beerus also doesn’t get nearly enough to do, and most of the humor involving him revolves around his love of food, which gets played out a bit past welcome. Other than that, the lack of certain characters like Mr. Satan, Buu, etc. is disappointing, but that’s honestly more of a fanboy-ish nitpick than a genuine weakness of the film.

Of course, this is a DBZ film, and what is DBZ without the fights (well, it’s a lot of things, but people most associate it with fighting because memes). If you were disappointed in the scant amont of action in BOG, you’ll be happy to know that this movie has a lot more of it. Each fight scene in the film is extremely creative, fun, and engaging. In fact, my favorite scene of the movie is the battle between the Z-Warriors and the Freeza soldiers. However, they suffer from some of Toei’s weaker animation and directing in spots, and a hideous use of CG in many shots of Freeza soldiers and complicated shots during Freeza and Goku’s fight. Seriously, the CG looks like something out of some mediocre PS2 DBZ game from a decade ago. It’s blatant and terribly integrated into the film, and can really be distracting at times, which is a shame. But he biggest weakness of the fighting, and the narrative in general, is the utter lack of tension. Again, it feels like the film is aware of this, which is why it focuses more on the comedy aspects than the action, but makes the fights seem less satisfying than they should. If you’re expecting Goku and Freeza’s battle in this film to recapture the tension and raw emotion pervading their epic clash in the Namek arc, you’ll be disappointed.

This is also a weakness compared to BOG. While there wasn’t a whole lot of fighting in that film, the final battle between Goku and Beerus is a huge rush of adrenaline where you really feel the desperation and emotion Goku is going through throughout the entire battle, and everything from the moment Goku bursts out of the ground to them going to space and Goku pushing back Beerus’ destroyer ball never fails to keep me on the edge of my seat every time I’ve watched it. In ROF, you never get a sense that any of the characters are in danger or are in a pinch. You spend the film wondering whether Freeza can even put up a fight rather than you worry about whether the heroes will win, and by rolling with that sentiment rather than trying to subvert it, the film weakens the punch and potency of both the fighting and the plot.

And on the subject of the plot comes the burning question; is this a better film than Battle of Gods? Short answer: It’s not. Now, as a Dragon Ball fan and a Toriyama fan, I enjoyed it more, but therein lies part of the problem. I know I spent a good chunk of this review praising Toriyama and commenting that ROF is the most genuine-feeling Dragon Ball film precisely because he wrote it. But while Toriyama is great with humor, he isn’t always the best storyteller, and that’s where ROF fails compared to BOG. It boils down to the different purposes of each film. BOG opened new horizons for the world of the series in introducing the concept of Gods, other universes, and the idea of even greater challenges that could be faced by Goku and co. in the future. It served to broaden the possibilities and expand the world of the series, taking it to a new level and allow for more exploration and stories to be told in a vaster universe with unlimited potential. But ROF doesn’t take advantage of what BOG brought to the table. It feels safer, more confined, and less ambitious. And in returning to an older foe and plot line rather than moving on to new ones, it feels like a step back for the series, which seems wasteful considering BOG was such a huge step forward.

Toriyama clearly didn’t write this film with moving the story of DB and it’s characters forward as a priority. He wanted to have fun with a concept, and he did that well. But it the lack of purpose and ambition in this movie that makes it a weaker piece compared to BOG in what it does with and for the franchise. The film doesn’t really add anything to the world of the series. No, not even with Freeza’s Golden form or in the new version of Super Saiyan god, the latter of which is introduced with a lot less fanfare than you might expect. At best, the film hints at some things that could be further explored, namely in the mystique behind Whis’ existence and Goku and Vegeta having to embrace teamwork (a lesson they intentionally decided not to learn at the end of the film), but whether the promises offered in BOG will truly followed up upon is left to a potential third film or Super to explore. This movie is a fun romp and one hell of a good time, but it’s also a shallow one. Which isn’t to say it’s bad; far from it, I loved this movie and enjoyed it even more than BOG. But for all the Toriyama flavor pervading the film, it feels just as inconsequential as the DBZ films from the 90’s do, and even the basic storyline is something that Toei could have come up with on their own, though I’m sure their version would have been way less entertaining.

The movie does try to offer some bit of character growth for Goku, to mixed results. The reason being that their are two aspects of his character tackled in the film, and the weakest developed one is made note of more blatantly. That one being Goku’s overconfidence in his strength and his tendency to underestimate his enemies. This is a lesson Master Roshi thought Goku years ago in early DB, and it seemed to stick for most of the manga right up to the end. BOG saw Goku, having freshly beat Majin Buu, think he’s at the top of the power scale and be skeptical there’s anyone left that could be his better. Fighting Beerus makes him remember that there’s always someone stronger, a point hammered in when Beerus drops the bombshell that Whis is even stronger than him (Toriyama stated in an interview that on a scale from 1-10, Super Saiyan God Goku would be a 6, Beerus would be a 10, and Whis would be a15. Yeah…). In this respect, ROF sees him make the same mistake of underestimating his enemy again, which feels like a step backward. However, I felt the moment was really addressing a couple of different aspects of Goku’s character; namely his irresponsibility when it comes to his priorities and his responsibilities towards protecting people and those around him.

FUNi once got backlash for characterizing the reason Goku let Vegeta escape from earth at the end of the Saiyan arc as “mercy.” They got that flak because that was not why Goku did that. Goku did that because he liked the challenge Vegeta offered and wanted the change to fight him again. It was a purely selfish reason, and while it was ultimately justified when Vegeta became an essential ally for the heroes during the Namek arc, at the time he did it just because he wanted to, ignoring the dangerous ramifications letting him go could have later on. Goku does this time and again throughout the course of DB. He didn’t let people like Recoome, Burter, and even Freeza live because he thought it was wrong to take their lives on principle or because he thought they could reform, but because he no longer saw them as threats. And what happened as a consequence? Freeza survived Namek’s explosion and tried to destroy earth. In the Cell arc, he led everyone on in order to fight Cell, leaving his teenage son to be his ace in the hole in case he wasn’t strong enough to beat him, without bothering to tell anyone his plan. Yeah, great plan Goku; it only cost you your life. Then in the Buu arc, Goku was perfectly capable of destroying the fat Buu then and there with his level of strength, but he chose to leave it to two little kids far weaker than him and let Buu continue murdering millions of people until they perfected an intricate technique. And because he did that, everyone except for Mr. Satan and Dende were eventually killed and Buu blew up the earth.

Time and again, Goku has let the fate of the earth be threatened because of his selfish whims and prioritizing testing his strength over protecting the people around him. And it’s only in this film that he’s made to realize just how dangerous and irresponsible that behavior is, when both Vegeta and Whis chastise him when Freeza manages to get the better of him, to grave results. This is a much deeper and omnipresent aspect of Goku’s character that followed him throughout the course of the series, and to see him finally get called out on it and seemingly learn a lesson about makes for a surprising and interesting deconstruction of his character. Whether it sticks is another matter. After all, Piccolo chastised his plan with Gohan in the Cell Games before, but that criticism was more circumstantial, especially since Piccolo showed no outrage whatsoever when Goku told him he could’ve easily killed Buu as an SSJ3 a mere arc later.

I wish that the movie did more to delve into this character exploration more thoroughly. Unlike BOG, Resurrection ‘F’ has a lot that Super could potentially flesh out and expand upon. Showing Freeza’s training, Goku and Vegeta’s under Whis, an extended search for the Dragon Balls, getting in more characters into the fight against the Freeza forces; there’s just a whole lot in this film that I could see expanded upon to great effect. Not that I’d expect Toei to add anything meaningful to the story as already presented, but I can’t help but feel that there’s a lot of potential for thematic and character exploration the film could have played with if it had the same amount of time to play out as a short arc of a television anime would. I’m not expecting Super to do anything to make the contents of the film even better. Especially with it’s god-awful quality control. I mean, did you see the crap they pulled in episode #5? Toei really has no shame, seriously.

But ultimately, these criticisms don’t get in the way of what makes the film work. Resurrection ‘F’ isn’t a film about thematic messages or deep character exploration. It’s not as ambitious and additive for the franchise as Battle of Gods. This was a fun, light-hearted tribute to one of Dragon Ball’s most well-loved villains, executed with the expert comedic timing and sensibilities that are solely, wholly Toriyama. As a film, it doesn’t stack up narratively to it’s predecessor or the best of anime franchise films. But it succeeds in capturing the spirit of the original Dragon Ball manga better than any anime installment of the series ever has. If you aren’t a big DB fan and are unfamiliar with Toriyama’s work, then you probably won’t get much out of this film. If you’re a casual DB fan, you’d probably enjoy it, but may not be very impressed. But if you’re a longtime fan of the series and Akira Toriyama, it’s a satisfying, enjoyable romp. It captures what I love about the series and the man so well, and even with all it’s shortcomings, I’d firmly call it my favorite Dragon Ball movie to date. At the time of this writing, there’s still at least two days left to see it in theaters. If you can, please go. The experience of watching this film with a theater full of people who love this franchise is too great to miss, and is worth the price of admission just as much as film itself is. Feel free to skip the pre-show, though. That’s a worse torture than what Freeza’s enduring in hell. – Cartoon X

And with that, the film was reviewed! But what new horizons face the indestructible Dragon Ball franchise and it’s intrepid fans? There’s only one way to find out! Tune in next time for a review of DRAGON. BALL. SU-

….yeah, no, fuck that shit. Go to hell, Toei.