Reviewing all the Original Dragon Ball Z Movies

When Dragon Ball Z first aired on Toonami in the late 90’s I was immediately enamoured by it. the action, the animation style, the characters and world, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was my first exposure to the world of Japanese animation, along with Pokémon obviously, and I’ve been a massive fan of the franchise ever since.

Even today I still consider it one of the best anime ever made. Not as good as stuff like Cowboy Bebop, which is still the GOAT, and there are plenty of things to make fun of and critique. Like how every fight scene involves people screaming, the sometimes overly convenient storytelling, how death has no meaning because the Dragon Balls can bring everyone back, Mr Popo’s design, the filler episodes (except the car one, that’s a god tier episode), Yamcha.

I still love it regardless. As a fan I can acknowledge these criticisms and still enjoy it for what it is. And no matter your thoughts on it, you’d have to be checked out of reality to not see the massive influence that Dragon Ball has had on Anime and media at large.

Being the fan that I am, I have obviously engaged with a lot of Dragon Ball media over the years. Most notably the video games of which there are many solid titles including recent hits like Fighterz and Kakarot. The Budokai and Tenkaichi series are still the best though, nothing has topped those yet.

I’ve even read the original Dragon Ball manga. At least for the first half of the series. I haven’t read much regarding the Dragon Ball Z portion of the series, though I will get to it eventually.

Point is, I’ve consumed a lot of Dragon Ball over the years. But there’s one part of Dragon Ball I’ve never properly partook in. I’ve never seen the original set of Dragon Ball Z movies from the 90’s. I’ve seen the newer films, but not the older ones that came out in the series heyday.

Let me explain for those unaware. While Dragon Ball Z was still airing in Japan, Toei animation, the company behind the anime adaptation, would release a series of films to coincide with the series.

13 films would release between 1989 and 1995. The films were made rapidly, with 2 films released each year for the spring and summer vacation periods. You know to maximise profits from all the young Dragon Ball fans.

The films were little more than promotion for the tv series. In fact, many of them were alternate retellings of story arcs running in the series at that time. With none of them being considered canon to the main series story.

It’s easy to just write these off as cash grabs, especially since we have the new movies which are canon, but that seems unfair. Yes, these are cash grabs, but that doesn’t mean a lot of hard work didn’t go into them. And to their credit, they did come up with a lot of unique ideas of their own. Some of which would later be introduced into the main series, albeit many years later.

These movies do have a special place in a lot of fans heart. They wouldn’t put the movie characters into the games if people didn’t. So, you know what, I’m going to give these films some respect. I’m going to look at all 13 films and see which ones still hold up, and which ones should be obliterated with a Final Flash.

And if you think that’s too much ground to cover for one article, well first off do you know me, and second it isn’t. Individually these movies are not very long. Most clock in at about 45 minutes to an hour. Keep in mind these movies were meant to be made quickly and shown in double features.

In short, these movies aren’t ones you watch for the plot. They’re movies you watch for the fun action and animation. Which is how I’m going to be judging them. Oh, I’ll critique the plots where I can, but I’m going in expecting a shallow, but ultimately fun time. The Avatar viewing mindsight essentially.

I’ll be viewing these via the Dragon Ball movie Blu-Ray collection. It has all 13 films as well as the Episode of Bardock and History of Trunks tv specials. I won’t be looking at those because those are tv specials not films, and both are considered canon or was in the case of Bardock. And I already have a lot to look at already, so yeah, I’m just going to skip those.

What’s cool about the Blu-Ray collection is, not only do you get a choice between Japanese and English languages, but you also get to choose the music for the English versions. Meaning you can watch it with either the original Japanese music, or the English soundtracks with licensed songs. A nice option to have.

I’ll be watching these dubbed since I don’t speak Japanese. But I will be watching with the original music to get the most authentic experience. Though speaking personally, I prefer the English soundtracks. Something about it just gets me more pumped up. Probably all the Metal in it.

Alright let’s kick things off with the very first non-canon Dragon Ball movie that is considered canon to the anime. Wait… what?

Dead Zone

So, yeah, Dead Zone is kind of considered canon to the series, sort of. The main villain of the movie, Garlic Jr, would have his own filler arc in the anime series. The key word in that being filler. The arc never happened in the manga and later versions of the anime would cut it out entirely. So, it’s canon to the original anime and nothing else.

But screw the convoluted continuity, how is the movie itself? Dead Zone takes place between the end of the original Dragon Ball and the beginning of Dragon Ball Z. And it certainly feels that way.

Dead Zone feels like a bit of a transition movie. This honestly feels closer to the Dragon Ball than it does Z. Hell, you could remove the Z from the title and it would still fit. The only reason it counts as a Dragon Ball Z movie is because it takes place near the end of the time skip between both series.

One cool thing about this is that we get to see Goku using his trade-mark Power Pole weapon. This is one of the few pieces of Dragon Ball media where adult Goku is seen using it which is kind of neat. It’s always nice to see throwbacks to the original Dragon Ball.

Even the story feels this way. As I said earlier, these movies were based on the current arc running in the anime at the time. In this case we have a film that takes a little from the Piccolo Jr saga, and a tiny bit from the opening of the Saiyan saga.

The films plot centres on Garlic Jr, a demon whose father tried to take Kami’s position but was sealed away 100’s of years ago. Naturally he wants revenge so he decides to take out Piccolo which would then kill Kami, and then use the Dragon Ball’s to wish for immortality. Even though the Balls don’t work when Kami is dead. Didn’t think that through did you Garlic. Thank goodness his minions are so incompetent.

The movie has a few plot holes like that. The biggest one being that Garlic Jr becoming immortal puts the story into a corner. Since they can’t kill him, the writers have to bullshit him creating a massive space vortex just to have some way to get rid of him.

Credit where it’s due for them having the villain wish for immortality, aside from targeting Piccolo first it shows he’s smart, but there’s a reason most stories don’t make the villain invincible. Once a villain wins, then there is no story. You either have to make them an idiot or make up a new power for the heroes to win. In this case they do both.

Thankfully the action and animation pick up the slack. The animation is a little better than the show, not by much but you can tell it had a higher budget. The design of Garlic’s castle is really cool. It kind of looks like the final area in an RPG, it’s got a weirdly alien/gothic look to it.

The action is also pretty good, when we get to it. This is my biggest complaint with the movie, there isn’t much action until the third act. Most of the movie is spent on set-up or comedy, and the comedy isn’t exactly great.

Most of it is just watching Gohan walking around in a drunken state, which is funny I won’t lie, but it gets old fast. Also, he pees on Krillin, and that’s just fucking gross.

Thankfully when there is fighting it is pretty good. Again, it feels more like the original Dragon Ball, so there’s a lot less flying around super-fast and lobbing energy attacks, and more focus on the martial arts. Though you still get plenty of energy blasts for those looking for them.

Dead Zone feels like a growing pains movie. You can tell the crew were still in flux going from the old Dragon Ball to the new. What’s here isn’t awful, honestly, I think it benefits most from the short length since nothing drags on, heh, but it could have been better. Speaking of which…

The World’s Strongest

This is much more like it. World’s Strongest came out when Dragon Ball Z was getting into full swing, and it definitely shows. This is much closer in tone and style to Dragon Ball Z, albeit the earlier seasons.

The plot of this movie is that an evil mad scientist named Dr Wheelo is trying to steal the body of the world’s strongest fighter so he can take over the world. Naturally he picks… Master Roshi? OK to be fair this does make sense since Wheelo was locked in ice for 50 years and he wouldn’t know about Goku or any of the other fighters. Thank Kami he didn’t go for Yamcha.

The story is about as simple as the first movie, but it is much better. There are still plot holes and nits to be picked for sure, but they aren’t nearly as big nor as noticeable. This movie pretty much goes all in on the action and it makes for a much more entertaining ride.

The fights, aside from being more frequent, are much more memorable than the first films. The different bad guys all have their own powers and abilities which helps make the fighting more varied and interesting.

There are still a lot of slow moments, this is an anime after all, but at least there’s a lot more going on between those moments, so it never gets boring. The only part that bugged me was this out of nowhere dream sequence with Gohan. It just sort of happens and then the film forgets about it. at least him being drunk affected something last time, this was just pointless.

One thing I must give World’s Strongest credit for is that the story is original and not based on an arc going on in the anime or manga. If anything it might have inspired a story in the manga. I mean the plot is about a mad scientist trying to use bio-mechanical creatures to take over the world, sounds a bit like the Android Saga doesn’t it.

That isn’t to say it’s an entirely original plot. I mean mad scientists trying to take over the world is a staple of super hero fiction, but it was a new concept for Dragon Ball at the time. Also, the Bio-men are just blatantly redesigned Saibamen. The villain designs aren’t super original to begin with, but that’s just straight up lazy.

That said, I really like the environment in this. Having it take place mainly in a creepy laboratory with huge machinery and wires all over the place gives it a very distinct look for a Dragon Ball film. It does somewhat resemble the castle in the last movie, but with a clear scientific theme over a demon/gothic one.

This is a much better film than Dead Zone. The only big negative for me is that I think the main villain is pretty boring. He’s just a typical evil scientist and not even the fun kind who’s off the wall insane. Still, a fun movie overall. They are getting better, but let’s see if they can keep the momentum going.

Tree of Might

Well, that was disappointing. Tree of Might is an improvement in some areas. For one thing, it feels a lot more cinematic. The previous movies admittedly felt more like extended episodes of the tv show than feature films, and spoiler alert but most of the other movies are like that. This is a lot closer to feeling like a movie.

The animation is a noticeable improvement. There are some really nice hand painted backgrounds, and there are a lot more interesting shots. This is also the first movie to have its own introduction rather than re-use the one from the show.

But my god is this film boring. The plot of this movie is about a Saiyan named Turles who comes to earth to grow the titular Tree of Might. A tree that sucks all life from the planet to bear fruit that boosts the power of those that eat it.

While the last film was an original story, this one is heavily based on the Saiyan saga. Turles himself isn’t a bad villain. He’s basically an evil version of Goku right down to looking exactly like him, which is never explained in the movie other than a vague “we’re cut from the same mould” excuse.

I think the movie is trying to have an environmental message. I mean the movie is about an invasive plant that ends up taking over and killing the local eco system, just on a more extreme scale. Not sure if that was the case, but if it was, credit to them for at least trying to say something. Even if it is a basic message.

The biggest problem with the movie though is the lack of action. There are barely any fights in the movie with so much white noise between them it makes the film a chore to watch. There’s so much filler in this movie you’d think it was a Shonen Anime. Wait…

The filler wouldn’t be so bad if it was entertaining, but it isn’t. Which brings me to Icarus.

This purple fuck is the cute dragon mascot of the movie, and I cannot stand him. Now, just to be fair, there isn’t anything wrong with Icarus. He’s a cute enough side kick for Gohan and I can see little kids liking him well enough.

The issue is the movie wastes so much time on him. I don’t want to see Gohan dick around with a purple dragon, I want to see bad ass martial artists lob energy beams at each other. Every time Icarus is on screen, he just gets in the way of the stuff you want to see.

The worst part is you can’t cut him out because he plays an important part in the final battle. I didn’t get why people hated Icarus before, but I certainly do now. This guy wears out his welcome fast.

Even when we get to some fighting it isn’t great. It’s nice seeing the other Z Warriors like Tien, Chiaotzu and Yamcha get in on the action, but they barely get to do anything. Especially Yamcha, though that’s par for the course with him.

Their fights against Turles minions all happen mostly off screen and what we do see doesn’t amount to much. All Krillin gets is throwing out one Destructo Disc and that’s it. They don’t even end up defeating any of them, which is accurate for Yamcha but Tien and Krillin could have taken a few of them.

It’s Goku who ends up taking them out which makes everyone else feel superfluous. I am aware that’s usually how things go in Dragon Ball, but you could at least give the others something to do. Even Piccolo doesn’t get to do much despite him being a big part of the last 2 movies. Don’t worry Big Green, you’ll get your time to shine soon enough.

The only time the action picks up is with the fight between Goku and Turles. And to its credit, the fight against Turles does feature some brutal choreography. The scene here Turles keeps Goku down with his feet and pummels Goku with a volley of energy shots might be the most sadistic attack in Dragon Ball.

But one good final fight does not a good movie make. The rest of the movie is simply too boring for me to recommend it, even to fans of Dragon Ball. Outside of the better animation it’s a massive step back in every other way. You skip this one, it isn’t worth your time.

Lord Slug

While still not that great, I enjoyed Lord Slug a hell of a lot more than Tree of Might. There’s a lot more action this time and the pacing is much better. it doesn’t waste nearly as much time and keeps the side stuff with Icarus to the barest of bare minimums.

Yeah, Icarus is back but thankfully he isn’t in the movie much. Outside of an opening dance with Gohan he’s barely in this thing. Though that dance was painful to sit through. Funny considering Piccolo was feeling the same way.

The plot this time is that an alien conqueror named, you guessed it, Lord Slug has arrived on earth to take it over. This time by freezing the planet so he can then use it as his own personal star ship. Not the most sensible method of space travel but it is original.

Before he does that though, he gathers the Dragon Balls to wish to return to his youth. See he’s super old and not as strong as he used to be, so he wants to be young again and… wait a second. Doesn’t all this sound familiar.

I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say Lord Slug is a Namekian. I mean for Yemma’s sake, his story is the exact same thing as Demon King Piccolo. Unfortunately, he’s nowhere near as intimidating or fun as his inspiration.

Demon King Piccolo is one of the series greatest villains. Slug on the other hand is one of the most forgettable. He doesn’t have interesting attacks, his motivation is basic and his design is honestly just goofy. I can’t take him seriously with that big purple helmet on.

The only thing he has going for him is that he can grow giant sized. This is because he is a Super Namek, a powerful race of Namekians that went mad with power and were banished from their home world. Not sure how being a Super Namek means you can turn giant when Piccolo can do the exact same thing, but I’m guessing they forgot he could do that. This happens a lot, they even made fun of it in Dragon Ball Superhero.

At least the fighting is still good, though I found the fights against Slugs minions more fun due to their more unique powers. The fight with Slug isn’t bad and there are some good moments, it’s just sort of there as a Dragon Ball fight. Not helped by the fact that Slug is defeated by whistling.

Yes, I am dead serious. Apparently Namekians hearing is acute that whistling can hurt them. They defeated the main villain by whistling a jaunty tune. What the fuck.

I liked it when Goku turned into a pseudo–Super Saiyan, but it also came out of nowhere and felt like a cheap way to add in something that was going on in the show at the time. Why did he even need it when he still had Kai-o-ken?

This is also the third movie in a row where the final attack is the Spirit Bomb. I like the Spirit Bomb and all, and it is nice seeing it actually being effective in the movies, but it is getting old at this point.

Lord Slug is better than Tree of Might, but it’s still not very good. The worst part about is the animation. It’s such a step back from last time and doesn’t look all that better than the show. There’s not as many interesting shots and there were a lot more noticeable animation mistakes.

It doesn’t look awful; it just doesn’t look movie quality. This feels the closest to an extended episode of the show. This is one of the weaker ones so far though I still say it’s worth a watch at least once.

Cooler’s Revenge

Alright, before we talk about Cooler’s Revenge, I need to bring something up. Most of the movies up until this point have used the intro for the tv show. Most of which use the instrumental music track created by Funimation used in their DVD releases for the series.

Well, the last movie used the Japanese theme, “Cha-la Head Cha-la”. And now Cooler’s Revenge has gone back to the instrumental track, but the video clearly shows the English lyrics for the Japanese theme. Bit of an oversight there, just thought I’d point that out.

Anyway, let’s talk about the movie itself. Cooler’s Revenge is a first for these movies. While previous movies were based on story arcs from the manga and anime series, this one is both based on and acts as a continuation of the Frieza arc.

In this case it’s about Frieza’s older brother Cooler going to earth to get, well, revenge on Goku for killing his brother. What’s interesting is the opening shows a brief glimpse of the destruction of planet Vegeta showing how Cooler was aware of Goku’s pod escaping the destruction. With Cooler willingly let him go because he didn’t view him as a threat. That, and he’s jealous of Frieza hogging all the attention and wanted him to clean up his own mess.

I actually like the hints of sibling rivalry between the two brothers. It helps make up for the fact that Cooler isn’t all that interesting a villain. He’s essentially just another Fireza only nowhere near as charismatic or memorable. Though I will say his final transformation is pretty badass looking.

I’ll give the film credit for at least portraying Cooler as a threat. He takes Goku out of commission very early on forcing Gohan and the gang to sneak around to get Senzu Beans to bring him back.

This creates something the other movies lacked somewhat, tension. Cooler’s Revenge makes it clear that Cooler and his Armoured Squadron, basically his version of the Ginyu Force, are way stronger than the others. They have to sneak around because if they get caught, they’re fucked.

This also means that Icarus can actually do something useful for a change. Yeah, I don’t mind Icarus much in this. They found a way to include him that doesn’t involve wasting my time with annoyingly cute side excursions. This is also his last appearance in these movies, so even if you still can’t stand looking at him, at least you know it’s over.

It makes the downtime between fights more engaging because there are actual stakes involved. The pacing is also tight. Cooler’s Revenge is one of the shorter movies which I think works to its advantage. It keeps things moving so it never gets boring.

When the action does pick up, it’s some of the better fights we’ve seen in these movies. This is also the movie where Piccolo is allowed to shine. His fight with the Armoured Squadron is the best one in the movie and I like that he was the one that took them all out and not just Goku.

The final fight with Cooler is one of the weaker final fights if I’m being honest. It isn’t bad, but it falls flat when Goku turns Super Saiyan. The final part of the fight feels rushed; Goku doesn’t get to do anything cool once he goes Super and that’s disappointing considering how good his fight with Frieza was.

The movie does feel rushed in other areas too. The animation is all over the place. Sometimes it looks better than it ever has, other times it looks rough. It’s very consistent, but it leans more towards good than bad.

At least the finisher is different. Instead of hitting him with a Spirit Bomb, Goku just blasts Cooler into the sun instead. That’s at least something different, even if it doesn’t make sense for the sun to come back after literally exploding. Eh whatever it’s Dragon Ball.

I liked Cooler’s Revenge. It has problems, but it is a step up from the last 2 movies. I even liked some of the jokes thrown in by the dub. The movie must have done well too, because the next movie would be a sequel to it.

The Return of Cooler

Well, we had the Frieza arc, now it’s time for the Mecha Frieza arc. Cooler is back only this time as a machine called Meta Cooler. Somehow his brain survived being hurled into the sun and merged with a sentient computer chip called the Big Gete Star. Now he’s arrived on Namek to absorb it into him and it’s up to Goku and friends to stop him.

I liked the first Cooler movie, but this one was bad. Really goddamn bad. I don’t know what went wrong here, but this is easily the worst film so far. Tree of Might was dull, but at least it had good animation. The Return of Cooler doesn’t even have that.

The animation here is awful. It’s not even just a handful of mistakes either, the line work is terrible, and the movements are stiff. The only part of the movie I thought looked good was when Piccolo entered the Big Gete Star, and that was only because it was ripped off from 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I don’t expect much from these movies. All I want is good animation and action. You failed me on the first, and the second doesn’t hold up too well either. There is plenty of action here but it’s not very interesting.

Aside from being let down by the animation, the fights are either against generic robots or Meta Cooler, with the latter taking up most of the running time. There’s no variety in the fight scenes which makes the movie a snooze-fest.

Meta Cooler isn’t even a good villain. Everything I liked about Cooler is gone, at this point he’s as boring a villain as you can get. Even his design sucks. It’s literally just Cooler, but shiny. At least Mecha Frieza had a nice Frankenstein look to him.

And I have a serious question about the plot of this movie. Goku and the gang are going to a distant planet to face a potentially dangerous foe and who do they bring along, fucking Oolong. Not Tien, not Chiaotzu, not even Yamcha, Oolong. What the fuck is Oolong supposed to do? Perv Cooler to death.

I don’t mind having Oolong in, it’s nice to see the OG Dragon Ball cast get some love, but you need to include them in a way that makes sense. The last few films did that, but this one? it makes no sense why he’s here at all.

There are only 2 things that I legitimately enjoyed. The first was one a gag at the end which I thought was pretty funny, and the other is one of the greatest Dragon Ball moments of all time, Vegeta getting kicked in the dick.

Oh yeah, this is the film debut of Vegeta. It is cool seeing him finally, and I do like seeing him and Goku team up, but man do I wish he had a better movie as his first. Skip this one without reservation. It sucks.

Super Android 13

Well, we’ve had the Frieza saga and the Mecha Frieza saga, which means the next arc on our list is the Android saga. As if the name didn’t already give that away.

Super Android 13 follows Goku and co. as they face off against 3 new androids built by Dr Gero’s supercomputer. Android 15, 14 and the titular 13. The latter of which is portrayed as a red neck in the dub. No joke though, I kind of love that. Not only does it fit his design, I mean the dude wears a trucker hat for King Kai’s sake, but it also gives him a bit more personality than he would otherwise have.

The villains aren’t great once again, but I’ll give them credit for at least having interesting designs. Though for Android 15 it’s for all the wrong reason. Look at this dude and tell me what they were thinking.

Yikes, and I though Popo was bad. Questionable character designs aside, I did still enjoy this movie. It’s a much more entertaining watch than the last movie at the very least.

The animation is a noticeable step up from Return of Cooler. There are still moments where it looks a little off, though it isn’t for the entire movie only a brief shot here or there. Plus, it makes up for these by having some of the best visual moments I’ve seen yet in this series. Vegeta’s and Piccolo’s entrances being a big highlight for me.

I’ll also give them credit for having the action take place in the arctic. Not the most visually interesting locale I’m aware, but it is something different for this series at least and does help this movie stand out.

Really my big issue with the movie is the action isn’t great. It isn’t bad, but it’s far from spectacular. It’s mid as far these films are concerned. That said it has some decent choreography, Trunks finally gets in on the action and he’s always fun to watch, and we get a scene of Goku getting punched in the nards. Not as good as Vegeta getting kicked in the dick, but it’s a close second.

Weird thing is I actually liked the comedy in this more than the action. This is the first of these movies where the jokes got a decent chuckle out of me. I wasn’t begging for them to get back to the fighting, which is more than I can say for the other movies.

Super Android 13 is ok. As far as these movies are concerned, I’d put it in the middle in terms of quality. Not the best, but also not the worst either. I would still recommend this one though since I think it gets more right than it gets wrong.

Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan

And so we reach Broly. By far and away the most popular Dragon Ball Z movie of them all. Though I’m not sure it’s because of the movie itself.

Truth be told, Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan isn’t that good of a movie. The animation is good and there are some decent comedic moments, but the movie is too long, it’s the longest film so far, and the story isn’t all that engaging.

Granted these movies aren’t exactly that story driven to begin with, but this movie has the unfortunate position of having too little going on while taking way too long to explain everything. There’s way too much backstory and exposition here. Which would be fine if it was entertaining, except it isn’t.

But it isn’t the movie that proved popular, it was Broly himself. Of all the movie villains, Broly is the one that has made the most impact. And it isn’t hard to see why. While Broly may not have much of a personality, he’s just a straight up psychopath, his charisma and overwhelming power make him the most entertaining of the movie villains.

He’s basically Dragon Ball’s answer to the Hulk. A big guy glowing green with power unrivalled by anyone. And just like the Hulk, it’s fun to see him go to town on whoever he’s facing. At least, for a little bit.

See, the reason this works for Hulk is because Hulk is a good guy. He’s the one you root for which makes it exciting seeing him effortlessly pound someone. Broly is the villain, so you aren’t meant to root for him. Which makes the fact that he’s effortlessly annihilating the characters you’re supposed to root for painful to watch.

One of the reasons this movie doesn’t work is because half of it is a total stomp fest. We’re watching characters we like get wailed on and being unable to put up much resistance. It gets tiresome quickly.

This is why I think Broly works better in the videogame than the movies. He’s like the ultimate final boss you need to overcome that makes you feel good when you do. Or he’s the guy you play as to go unga bunga on people. In the videogames I like Broly, which is probably why they put him in so many of them. in the movie, not so much. I can see the appeal of him, but I think it works better in other mediums.

Although part of that might be because his backstory is that he was triggered by a crying infant. That is the dumbest backstory I have ever heard in my life. It’s hard to find the character cool when his backstory is so dumb.

Thankfully, Broly became so popular they went and made him canon. Years after the fact, Broly was brought into the story proper with Dragon Ball Super Broly. It retold Broly’s origin while making some changes and is a much better film.

The story is much better removing all the stupid shit and expanding on it in the right ways. Broly is a much better written and likable character, and the action and animation is some of the best I have ever seen, not just of Dragon Ball but animation in general.

I recommend the new Broly movie without reservation. The old Broly I can only recommend to fans of the character who want to see how he started out. It’s not awful, there have been much worse films, but it isn’t very good either. A middling movie with a memorable antagonist.

BoJack Unbound

BoJack Unbound is the first Dragon Ball Z movie not to feature Goku as the main character. He is still in the movie, but it’s only as a side character. This takes place after the Cell saga so by this point Goku has died and left defending the earth to Gohan. It makes for a nice change of pace seeing someone else in the main character seat.

The plot is that a billionaire named X.S Cash, which is such a stupid name I have to love it, decides to host the first “Intergalactic” Tournament for his son’s birthday. And yes, the quotations were intentional. They claim they invited 4 of the galaxy’s strongest fighters but it’s really just a bunch of guys in costumes.

Naturally though, actual aliens hijack the tournament. Said aliens being the titular BoJack and his gang of genocidal conquerors. Turns out they were demons sealed away by the Kai’s centuries ago and the recent death of King Kai during the Cell games caused the seal to break and now they’re free to wreak havoc across the galaxy.

I really liked this movie. I went in with no expectations since I hardly see anyone talk about it, but I came away really enjoying it.

Right off the bat I love the tournament setting. The World Tournament arcs in Dragon Ball were some of my favourites and a lot of what I enjoyed about those is in this movie. We get to see a lot of different fighting styles and matchups we wouldn’t normally see, like a fight between Trunks and Tien.

Granted because this is a movie, we don’t see much of that, but we get just enough of it to be satisfying without destroying the pacing. Everyone gets a chance to do something, even if it isn’t much. At least the fights don’t happen off screen like in Tree of Might.

The pacing is also much better here. Most of these movies have slower moments that drag the pacing down, but not here. The only slow moments were in the opening where everything was being set up, and even that had some decent comedy to keep things entertaining.

Even the settings get way more creative this time. The tournament stage is a unique design for Dragon Ball, and once they get to the underground arena, we get some of the most creative and trippy visuals we’ve yet seen in these movies.

This is one of the better-looking movies. There are still noticeable mistakes here and there, but not that many. The film looks great, and the action is still very fast and fluid.

My only major complaint with the movie is BoJack himself. He’s easily the least charismatic and boring villain in these movies. I won’t say the other movie villains were great, but they at least had something going for them. Cooler had a cool transformation, Broly had raw power, Android 13 had a trucker hat.

BoJack has nothing. His transformation is boring, it’s just him but bigger and green, he has no creative abilities or attacks, even his design isn’t all that great. I like the pirate theme he has, but the actual design is just kind of there.

Even his minions are boring. The only one I remember is Zangya and that’s because they’re a woman. Credit for having that though, Dragon Ball doesn’t have a lot of strong female fighters so it’s always nice to see one. Especially when they’re easy on the eyes.

Weak villains aside, I really enjoyed this movie. It’s just a fun and breezy ride from beginning to end. This one I can easily recommend, at least if you’re a Dragon Ball fan.

Broly Second Coming

Yep, Broly was so popular they gave him a sequel. And I went easy on the first Broly movie, but Second Coming is awful. What in the piping hot hell happened here?

Broly Second Coming takes all of the worst traits of all the other movies and rolls them all into one package. The animation is ok I suppose, but the comedy is childish and inane, the action is dull, and the pacing is so bad that it feels longer than the first despite it being nearly 30 minutes shorter.

Now you’re probably wondering how Broly survived from literally exploding from the inside. Good question, wish the movie explained it. All we get is that he found a spare Saiyan pod and made his way to Earth, which explains how he escaped the comet, but not how he survived exploding. Then he… somehow got frozen in ice. How? Don’t know.

Oh well, who needs answers to basic questions when we have antics with Trunks and Goten to go on. Antics which make up most of the running time. No, I’m not kidding, half of the fucking movie is spent on Trunks and Goten dicking around to get the Dragon Balls with Videl.

I don’t normally mind Trunks and Goten. They’re cute enough in small doses, but they are insufferable in this. I know they’re little kids, but even with that context I found them too childish. I thought Gohan’s antics with Icarus was bad, but I’ll take that a thousand times over than suffer through this crap again.

There’s also this sub plot about a village sacrificing their young to a mountain spirit that is so pointless you could have cut it from the movie and missed nothing. It’s like a shitty filler episode they superglued to the beginning of the movie. Once Broly enters the picture it gets dropped immediately.

And you know how Broly is often characterised as this big brute who shouts Kakarot over and over again? Well that wasn’t what he was like in the first movie, it was Second Coming that made him into that. This is such a downgrade from the first movie. Any charisma Broly had is sucked out of him in this and he’s been reduced to just some big strong brute. He is so much more boring than he was before.

The worst part is, he doesn’t even come across as that powerful in this. In the first movie you felt how powerful he was. He was ploughing through the Z Warriors and taking their hits like they were nothing. Sure it lead to the movie being a boring stomp fest, but at least it showcased how powerful he was.

Here he spends half the movie playing a cat and mouse game with Goten and Trunks and doesn’t get much of a fight with anyone. Also, Trunks pees on him. He went from smacking Vegeta into a mountain, to being peed on by his offspring. Jesus Christ almighty.

And I could forgive all of this if there was some decent fighting, but there’s hardly any here. Even Tree of Might, for as dull as that was, had some good action sequences. Return of Cooler was bad, but it had plenty of fighting. This has so little of it that, when combined with the bad comedy, makes the movie an utter chore to get through.

The only good thing I can say about this movie is that the family Kamehameha at the end is a legitimately good moment. It’s nice seeing Goku interacting with his kids and it makes for one of the better finishers in these movies. But it is not worth sitting through the movie to see it.

This movie is dreadful. It’s one of the worst pieces of Dragon Ball media I’ve ever seen. Not just in terms of the movies but just in a general sense. I would take the worst filler episode of the show than this any day of the week.

This was bad. Hopefully the next one is better. What is next anyway… oh dear sweet lord no.

Bio-Broly

I have been dreading this moment ever since I started this. Bio-Broly is infamous among Dragon Ball fans as the worst of all the Dragon Ball Z movies. And considering how bad I thought some of the other movies were, that only increased my fear of how bad this thing was.

I went in with extremely low expectations, and I have to be honest, I didn’t think it was THAT bad. Make no mistake, this is a bad movie, but THE worst Dragon Ball Z movies? I don’t think I can agree with that. It’s up there, definitely in the bottom 5, but I honestly thought Second Coming was worse.

At least this movie had some more action, not good action but there was at least more of it. The comedy wasn’t great, but it was more tolerable than whatever Second Coming had, plus there was one line that did get a laugh out me so there’s that.

This is not a good movie at all, but it wasn’t aggravating to sit through. It was honestly just kind of dull and uninteresting. The plot is that an old rival of Mr Satan wants revenge, so he asks him to come to his private island to beat his bio-warriors, including a clone of Broly.

And credit where it’s due, they do explain how they got the DNA to do this. Apparently, the shaman character from the last movie found some dry blood from where Broly crash landed and that’s what used. It doesn’t make that much sense, but at least they tried to explain it. That’s at least one thing it objectively does better than Second Coming.

Bio-Broly itself is really lame though. It’s just a big glob monster that uses Broly’s attacks. It looks more like Swamp Thing than Broly. I do find it a fitting evolution of the character though, or rather de-evolution. He went from a psychopath to a brainless brute, to just a straight up monster.

I don’t even know why they bothered to make it Broly anyway when there’s nothing recognisable about him in this. Just make an original villain. It’s not like the name recognition helped much; Broly fans absolutely hated what they did with him. So if it was for name recognition it blew up in their face.

The other villains aren’t much better. They’re more comedic but they aren’t funny at all. The main bad guy’s only distinguishable character trait is he gets words wrong sometimes. That’s it, that’s the extent of the joke. I like comedic Dragon Ball villains, but they must actually be funny to work.

There are also some things in the plot that bug me. Like how the villains somehow know Broly is the Legendary Super Saiyan despite there being no way they could know that or even what a Saiyan is. Or how Trunks know how to do the Kamehameha despite that not being one of his techniques. Or how about the fact that the actual big threat in the movie is goo.

Yeah Bio-Broly isn’t the big threat here. it’s this purple ooze that devours any organic material. That’s actually how they defeat Broly in this, by dunking him in goo. And how do they stop the goo, by dunking it in sea water because that turns it to stone. Oh well isn’t that convenient.

This movie is lame. It isn’t as aggravating as some of the other movies, but it’s also lacking any cool or exciting moments. Even the worst movies had at least one cool thing about them, Bio-Broly has none. It’s just a lame, boring stupid movie.

I don’t hate it like I did Second Coming. All I feel is abject indifference, and that’s arguably far worse. Maybe that’s why this is considered the worst. It’s not the hardest to sit through, it’s just the one that makes you feel nothing after it’s finished. It sits there begging you to give a shit and all you can say is…

2 more left guys. Let’s hope they get better from here.

Fusion Reborn

Fusion Reborn is a strange movie. On the one hand it has one of the coolest Dragon Ball moments of all time and some of the most creative fight scenes and animation in all of the movies. On the other hand, this movie is goofy as hell.

This is one of the most oddball Dragon Ball movies I’ve ever seen. This was made around the time of the Buu saga and it has a lot of the same vibes as that did. Still having plenty of fun action but with a more cartoonish tone overall.

The Buu saga was fairly divisive, and I have a feeling this movie will be too. But speaking personally I ended up really enjoying it. Not all the jokes landed, but a good chunk of them did and I found it a lot more palatable than the comedy in the last 2 movies.

I also like the setting. The premise of the movie is that a lazy worker causes meltdown in Otherworld mutating him into a monster called Janemba. Janemba then proceeds to encase King Yemma’s office in a weird bubble which wreaks havoc in the afterlife. The barriers between dimensions start breaking down causing the dead to come back to life.

Most of the movie is set in Otherworld. I always liked Otherworld as a setting in Dragon Ball so it’s nice to see it get some representation in the movies. Technically we did see it in Bojack Unbound but we only got to see Snake Way, so it doesn’t count.

We get a lot of creative locales in this movie. Even when the movie does show us Earth it still looks nice, though it does look a lot more, for a lack of better term, cartoonish than usual. The animation is a lot more stylised this time with thicker outlines and more pastel colours for the Earth scenes. It fits the goofier tone and helps give each setting a better visual identity.

The animation is still excellent, and we still get some excellent fight scenes. In fact, the fighting is some of my favourite in the movies. Janemba might be a very clear expy of Majin Buu, even his transformation from a fat man baby to skinny demon is nearly identical, but he has some very unique techniques.

From punching through portals, to breaking reality like glass and using it as a projectile, to even countering the Kamehameha be creating a mini Goku to fire its own Kamehameha. There are some really creative fight scenes in this movie. It might even be more creative than the fights in the actual main series.

And then there’s the fusion of Goku and Vegeta. This is the first appearance of Gogeta and yeah, it’s a pretty damn cool moment. I know Vegito already existed before this, but Gogeta is just too damn cool man. He’s only in the movie for like a minute, but he leaves a big impression with the short screen time he’s given.

Gogeta himself became so popular that he would reappear in Dragon Ball GT, and would later be made canon in Super Broly. That really was the movie that kept on giving wasn’t it. We also got to see a lot more of Gogeta in that, so if this movie left you cold, go check that movie out as well. Which you should do anyway because it’s a fantastic movie.

I really liked Fusion Reborn. It’s goofier tone won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you can vibe with it there is a lot to enjoy here. I only really have 2 problems with this movie. The first is that I would have liked to have seen more from Gogeta. He is the big selling point of the movie, look at the title for Shin’s sake, and it does feel weird that he’s only in the movie briefly. We see more of fat Gogeta than the main one and that doesn’t feel right.

Second, I wish they did more with the idea of the dead coming back to life. When this happens, we see that older Dragon Ball villains also returned. That’s a really cool premise but all it really amounts to are brief cameo appearances.

Still, it is neat seeing some of the older villains, even ones from the moves. We see Frieza, BoJack, the Ginyu Force, Dracula, Adolf Hitler… wait, WHAT! Yes, Adolf Hitler is in this movie. Apparently, he and Dracula somehow exist within the Dragon Ball universe. Oh, don’t believe me, look.

I mean, they don’t outright say his name, but look at him. He even says at one point that he should hire Trunks and Goten because their Super Saiyan transformation has blonde hair and blue eyes. That is literally Hitler, it can’t be anyone else. And he has a larger screen time than Frieza does.

I need to move on to the last movie because this is going to drive me insane. Fusion Reborn is good you should check it out. Goofy, but still awesome.

Wrath of the Dragon

This is it folks. The last of the Dragon Ball Z movies. It’s been a long and rocky road, but we finally made it to the end. And it is my happy duty to report that we’re ending on a high note. Wrath of the Dragon is easily the best of the Dragon Ball Z movies and it’s not even close.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t enjoyed any of the other movies. I mean I clearly did, you’ve been reading this for long enough to know that. But this is the first of these movies that I enjoyed for more than just the animation or the action. Because Wrath of the Dragon actually has a pretty good story to back it up.

The plot is that an alien wizard named Hoi arrives on Earth to warn of an impending danger. Saying the only way to stop it is by releasing a legendary hero named Tapion from a mystical music box. But it turns out Tapion isn’t happy on being released and hides himself away from the others.

The only one who he does interact with is Trunks, who brings him food and treats him like the older brother he never had. Tapion then reveals that Hoi is part of an evil race bent on exterminating every other race through a giant monster, who was sealed away inside both Tapion and his younger brother when it attacked their home planet Konats a thousand years ago.

Now that Tapion is released the monster is also trying to break free and it’s up to the Z Warriors to find a way to stop him before it’s too late. There is a lot more going on in the story than in the other Dragon Ball Z movies. In those it all boiled down to big bad guy shows up, go kick his ass.

And yeah, that is still true here to extent, but there’s more to it than that and it’s all because of Tapion. Tapion is one of the best non-canon Dragon Ball characters out there. He has a great backstory and the relationship he builds with Trunks is legitimately sweet. He doesn’t have any flashy techniques, in fact he doesn’t fight at all, but I think that makes him more interesting.

He’s like a bizarro Broly, he’s not great because of how powerful he is but because he’s an actual well written character. I also really like his design too. It’s very classic in sense, he looks like a protagonist in a JRPG. You can tell he was inspired by Link a lot, he even plays a magic Ocarina for Shenron’s sake, but it’s still pretty cool.

And while the main villain Hirudegarn is little more than a giant monster, that does help him stand out. Think about it, the main villain is a giant fire breathing bug monster. It’s a Dragon Ball Kaiju movie. How can you not love that.

Wrath of the Dragon is an odd movie for this set because it focuses more on the story than it does on the action. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t good action though, because there certainly is. But because a lot of the action is Kaiju themed it isn’t as fast paced as the other films, but what we have here is still very good.

It even gives Goku his own signature attack, Dragon Fist. An attack so cool I’m honestly shocked it wasn’t made canon. Seriously, it’s a unique move for Goku that he invented, and it involves a giant fire dragon. That’s the perfect final technique for him. Seriously Toei, put this in the next movie and make it officially canon. If Broly and Gogeta could get the honour why not this.

Actually, I wish the movie itself was made canon. It doesn’t interfere with the timeline too much so I don’t see why it couldn’t be. It even explains where Trunk’s sword came from. Granted it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, did future Trunks also help a future Tapion? Did Hoi arrive on Earth earlier in Future Trunks timeline or later? Which one is more likely to… ok I can see why it isn’t canon now.

Wrath of the Dragon is a great movie for Dragon Ball fans. I would also argue that it is the most cinematic of the films. I hinted at this earlier, but the other movies felt more like extended episodes of the show than feature films, right down to using the shows intro.

Wrath of the Dragon is one of 2 movies that doesn’t do this, the other being Tree of Might. I also think the animation was given a bigger budget, but I don’t know for sure. Even so the animation is spectacular and among the best of any Dragon Ball movie. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as the newer films, but it’s still pretty high up there.

I guess because this was the last movie everyone involved went all out with production. They clearly wanted to end on a high note and absolutely succeeded at that. A great film to cap off the series.

And with that we are finally, finally done. I have now officially seen all 13 of the original Dragon Ball Z movies, and I have to say, yeah, it was worth it. There were some definite stinkers here for sure, but the ones I liked I really liked, and it was nice to finally see where a lot of the movie villains came from.

Of the movies I’d say stay away from Tree of Might, Return of Cooler and the last 2 Broly movies. Those are absolute dogshit and not worth it even for the most diehard fans. But by that same token, I would recommend Cooler’s Revenge, World’s Strongest, Bojack Unbound, Fusion Reborn and Wrath of Dragon to any Dragon Ball fans who have yet to see them. Everything else I could take or leave, they sit firmly in the middle for me.

I also want to make it clear that I only recommend these to fans of Dragon Ball. If you’re not a fan then you aren’t going to get much out of them, or even know what’s going on. Then again if you aren’t a fan, the fuck did you read this for?

I would still recommend, if you are fan, to watch all the movies at some point. They are products of their time, but there is still a lot to enjoy. The animation is, for the most part, excellent and there are some great moments that have become big fan favourites.

These movies are all worth a watch. Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy a film I didn’t and loathe a film I loved. Give the movies a watch and decide for yourself, it’s not like they’re hard to find. You can skip Bio Broly though, nobody enjoys that one.

That was, exhausting. I’m glad I finally did it but I’m never doing this again. Although, there are some TV specials I didn’t look at, or the canon movies, hell even the original Dragon Ball had some movies I could look at in the future. I mean they can’t be all bad right? I mean it can’t get worse than Broly Second Coming…

Nope, fuck it, not doing this again.