151 Proof Movies Hangover: Dragonball Evolution
So after much moaning and crying, and a few attempts of trying to get out of it, we finally settled down and decided to check out Dragonball Evolution. As a on the fly rule, depending on how bad I expect a movie to be, I take 1-3 shots before the actual drinking game to make sure I’m already down that slippery slope before the movie begins. The more shots, the worst I expect the movie to be. In the case of Dragonball Evolution, I decided that 2 shots was the proper amount based on all of the great word of mouth. So there’s your baseline for the movie, 2 shots before it even started.
How did the actual movie fare though?
I will say upfront, I came into this movie with lower than low expectations. As I mentioned above, I even tried to weasel my way out of it, at least twice before watching it. That said, I actually did kind of enjoy the movie. Now as someone pointed out, it could have been because I was drinking, but that isn’t always the case. I hated Sucker Punch and it became worse and worse the MORE I drank because it became a confusing mess.
I wouldn’t classify it as the best movie I’ve ever seen, and it isn’t without its problems (Which I get to in a second) but for an hour and a half, it entertained me, which is really all I could have asked for from the movie.
As noted, it does have its problems. The first one, and the one that probably bothered me the most watching the movie is the fact that most of the cast is white. Don’t want to come off as racist, but the original anime, I felt most of the characters were of Asian descent, but apparently the movie didn’t feel the same way? (Similar issue I had with The Last Airbender). The other thing, which happens way too often, is it has some pretty piss poor CG, which you’ll really notice from time to time. Finally, and I’m still not sure if its a good or bad thing, the acting can be a bit over the top at times. Sometimes, it works, sometimes it doesn’t!
I don’t know if I could recommend the movie to anyone, but if its on TV, I wouldn’t turn it off!
As for the FUN part of the movie, the drinking rules were kind of a hit or miss ordeal. Most of the rules really weren’t used much. He transforms into a monkey only during the climax. There really wasn’t much move shouting/name calling throughout the movie though it does happen, again during the climax. Posing, is a difficult rule to manage, unlike Street Fighter, there wasn’t as much blatant camera posing.
So about 10-20 minutes into the movie, we decided to throw another rule into the pile, and that was to drink whenever a character defied gravity in some fashion. That rule came in rather handy during the second half of the movie. And it really does ratch up the over-the-topness pretty quickly when it does happen.
The rule that proved the most efficient/damaging as expected is the verbal cue. Dragonball is said sparingly during the first 30 minutes or so, but once a certain plot advancement occurs in the movie. Well, let the dragonballs drop as they say. There are scenes where dragonball is said upwards of 9 times in about 2 minutes. That was not a fun part of the movie, but boy did it help loosen up the game a bit.
All in all, if I had to fix up the drinking rules. I would ditch the fighting poses/monkey transformation (or turn it into a shot) and add the defying gravity rule. I would also add a rule for any scene where you think the actors are hamming it up. The problem with some of these rules though is they are subjective so not everyone will have the same experience.
I’m …GLAD you’ve …uh… enjoyed it! No, seriously, you watching this and saying it’s not that bad of a movie makes me want to try it out someday. Just someday, not now. I’ll be sure to drink on the defying gravity rule, and also the verbal cue with Dragonball. Instead of drinking to every cue, I’ll drink up on every 3rd Dragonball cue. I’m still afraid to watch this movie. I’m always terrified of watching cartoon/video game based movies.