Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Director: Tatsuya Nagamine
Genre: anime  action  scifi 
Release Year: 2019    

review    

About

Dragon Ball Super: Broly is the return to the big screen for Goku, Vegeta and all their pals. It's also the first Dragon Ball Super titled movie, even though Battle of Gods and Resurrection F both take place during Dragon Ball Super they are Dragon Ball Z titled movies. This is also the first canon appearance of Broly, a fan favorite Saiyan from some older non-canon Dragon Ball Z films.

See 1 2 3

This movie uses a different animation style compared to the other Dragon Ball movies as well as the Dragon Ball Super anime and I think it looks absolutely awesome! I'm not usually a fan of the CGI turned 2d anime, I'm very partial to old-school hand drawn anime of the 80s and 90s, but I really think that they pull it off with this one.

The animation is super smooth, the colors are vibrant and the fight scenes are very fluid and interesting to watch. All in all everything just looks great and I've heard rumors that if the Dragon Ball Super anime continues, this movie technically takes place after the end of the anime series, it will use this new animation style. I am really happy with the animation style and the way this movie looks so I can give it a 3 no problem.

Hear 1 2 3

The music used in this movie was definitely created specifically for it. You can tell because anytime a character is fighting the lyrics of the song are their name. One song plays quite a bit during a lot of the fight scenes and it must be Broly's theme song because the lyrics are basically just BROLY BROLY BROOOOOLY.

Interestingly the "theme" music for each fighter will merge together during their fighting. A good example of this is the final fight between Broly and Gogeta. The lyrics start changing up to GOGETA GOEGETA BROOOOLY. This is an interesting way to make the music really integrated into the movie. The music is a bit cheesy and repetitive, so I can't quite give it a 3 but I think a 2 fits just right.

Feel 1 2 3

This section is definitely going to be affected by my Dragon Ball nostalgia, but I think that is totally fine for the Feel section. The score in this category should be more personal to the individual. Dragon Ball Super: Broly brings back fan favorite characters Goku, Vegeta, Frieza and finally brings a couple of good ideas from the better non-canon movies into the canon.

I never loved the older Broly movies, but I really liked Goku's father Bardock and the fusion character Gogeta. So I was very excited to see them in action in this movie. Bardock, unfortunately, isn't used particularly well but the big fight between Gogeta and Broly is really quite the spectacle!

The big drawback for this movie is that even though it shows some cool backstory for a lot of the characters that has never really been explored before, that only makes up a very small portion of the film. In fact I'm pretty sure the battle with Broly ends up taking at least the entirety of the last 45 minutes of the movie. While the fight scenes are quite the spectacle, they really drag out and for that I think this movie deserves a 2 for this section.

Conclusion

All things considered Dragon Ball Super: Broly takes some good ideas from older non-canon Dragon Ball Z movies, morphs and refurbishes them and fits them all together in a gorgeously animated and fun to experience movie. It may be silly, and the fighting scenes may actually drag on a bit long. I think in the end it really is one of the best Dragon Ball movies of all time.