Nayr39 Review of Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2018)

Visually impressive, but overly long with redundant action scenes lacking tension

[5/10 · 3 February 2019]

Dragonball movies have always had their issues, they're generally just poorly written and paced fan service doses for people to enjoy fun what if scenarios. This one takes that and pushes it to it's limit but without actually developing an interesting antagonist or any ounce of suspense around it. Like every Dragonball movie you know going in none of the characters are at threat, the planet will be fine and all will revert back to normal at the end of it. So the core of this movie has to come from the action and the character moments. This version of Broly is superior but ultimately just as shallow despite rewriting his character and making him more sympathetic. The writing during these moments is still weak at best, it's clearly catering to children and potential newcomers alike with awkward overly explanatory dialogue and at other times hitting you with stuff so simply or poorly written you can't help but roll your eyes. Thankfully there are many visual treats here, but all as formulaic as ever, you will see our main characters start out at their normal base level, then slowly ramp up with increasing levels of strength and set pieces until something inevitably happens to push the fight over the edge and end it. Unlike most Dragonball movies we get a different ending, our antagonist is actually saved and given a second shot at life, but on his prison of a home planet instead and our characters arch rival is just let go to kill and torture whoever he wants, despite Goku supposedly being a goodhearted person who would never let anyone on Earth suffer, but hey, random Frieza henchmen and anyone he decides to kill as he travels through space? Ay okay in Goku's book. Moment's like this make any character moments that need to shine fall flat, nothing is consistent, everything is convenient, references and callbacks like the Krilin/Namek moment or the fusion dance nonsense is all here in it's boring glory. Nothing feels fresh except for the fight choreography and animation. Which if you really want to just see beautiful animation, it's okay, but you could just go watch Redline. Instead you get a repetitive predictable slog of a beatdown with no twists or anything to worry about. It's a retread of a existing movie that does very little new. Watch if you are a massive fan of Super or for some reason enjoy brainless animation but other than that steer clear. There's not much of worth here sadly and far to many repeated mistakes that for some reason can just not be fixed even after the many years this franchise has exised.