Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero Movie Review: When it comes to Dragon Ball, you expect some earth-shattering fight scenes with an emotional connect behind it. With Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (just want to talk to the person who thought this title was fine), you get none of that. Sitting there for about 100 minutes, all you get is a flash screen of superpowered attacks consisting of a story that’s not all there. Liger Movie Review: Vijay Deverakonda and Ananya Panday's Film is Aafat Max Pro! (LatestLY Exclusive).
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is directed by Tetsuro Kodama and is written by series creator Akira Toriyama. When the Red Ribbon army returns and hires Dr Gero’s grandson Dr Hedo (Zach Aguilar), an extremely gifted mad scientist, they start creating new androids to seek vengeance on those responsible for the destruction of their organisation in the past. Getting a whiff of it, Piccolo (Christopher Sabat) sets out on a journey to stop them before things get out of hand.
Surprisingly, Piccolo ended up getting the top billing here. Throughout the Dragon Ball Super saga, the character has been a bit forgotten, but seeing him lead this movie was refreshing. He gets a great amount of development with his character that previous films lacked, and being in the spotlight made him more compelling. Gohan (Kyle Hebert) too joins him in this fight, and the half-Saiyan gets a great amount to do over here.
While our heroes are pretty well presented, sadly the villains lack any amount of threat. With two new androids by the name of Gamma No 1 (Aleks Le) and Gamma No 2 (Zeno Robinson), they are rather just there as pawns of a system that slowly figure out the screws of their organisation. That aspect, for some reason, is hardly touched upon. Then you have Magenta (Charles Martinet), who is another villain that I couldn’t care about considering he was a complete goofball and when the movie reached up to Cell Max, I had already zapped out.
Watch The Trailer:
The story too feels like an extended episode of the series masked as a full-fledged movie. The last few films that have released under the Super banner still had a cinematic feel to it, but here it rather feels like a rushed episode with majority of it being fillers. While the 3D animation, which is a first for the series, helps Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero in looking fresh, the story lacks any heart to it.
The interactions don’t have any weight to them and the silliness factor persists. The franchise is known for being silly, but that’s still balanced out with a well-written plot that has some meaningful relationships behind of them. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero isn’t well written and is filled with a bunch of deus ex machina’s that are as subtle as Clifford the Big Red Dog in Central Park.
All the beats of the series are present, but none of them feel earned in any way. When Goku turned into a Super Saiyan for the first time in Dragon Ball Z, that effect was felt. Hers? Every major scene just feels like it was picked out of a magician’s hat.
Another thing that has to be mentioned here is the sound design. Saying that a bunch of the dialogue wasn't audible would just be lying. Felt like I was back watching Tenet in IMAX – which was still better in some parts seeing how Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero just overlaps its music and background noise with the dialogue. House of the Dragon Review: Matt Smith’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Series Is An Impressive Return to Westeros! (LatestLY Exclusive).
It’s not all bad though in the land of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. There are a bunch of character references that should keep long-time fans happy. For example, the film references characters like Hercule Satan and for those who want to know what Goku and Vegeta are up to, there are some satisfying scenes sprinkled in there.
Yay!
The Animation
References
Nay!
Weak Story
Weak Villains
Final Thoughts
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is a mind-numbing adventure that felt like a prolonged episode. Lacking the heart of the Dragon Ball series, and having a tepid sound design, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is a disappointing adventure. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is playing in theatres right now.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 26, 2022 10:02 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).