DREDGING up Broly for a triumphant return to form, series creator Akira Toriyama and director Tatsuya Nagamine instead find themselves hamstrung by modern animation shortcuts. An overreliance on CGI for the expertly crafted fight sequences ruins what could have acted as a fantastic finale to the Dragon Ball Super saga. Instead, the film lacks the effort and care required to make it a memorable entry.
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Dragon Ball Super: Broly presents the new canonical version of Broly’s origin. No longer does he rage after Kakarot as revenge for having to listen to his cries as an infant. Now we watch as King Vegeta ships him off to an uninhabited planet; partially out of fear and partially out of jealousy. There, him and his father train and survive, biding their time until they have an opportunity to extract their revenge.
A long story short, Goku and Vegeta fight Broly for roughly 45 minutes. Perhaps not surprisingly the movie also yada yada’s over the foundational details of the story. It assumes you have at least a passing familiarity with characters and story arcs, with several opening moments (Bardok’s last stand for one) not making much sense otherwise. Even with all of these assumptions, what you really want to see does not start until over halfway through the movie. When the singular fight does finally makes its appearance, the film rushes through it. The second half of the movie feels as if someone pressed the fast forward button. If Nagamine had just fully committed to trimming the fat in the beginning, it could have given the showcase fight more room to breathe.
More room to breathe means more time for one of the flashiest fights in all of Super. For a series much maligned for its weightless and sanitized combat, Dragon Ball Super: Broly invokes the feeling of classic Z climaxes. With humor reminiscent of the original Dragon Ball, DBS: Broly touches all the right nostalgic notes. However, the incredibly generic side character designs will often remind you what series the film belongs to.
Watching Goku and Vegeta pull up in their streetwear inspired coats invokes a fan’s deepest childhood memories of the series. As the three warriors begin to trade blows a smile creeps onto the face. The grandiose soundtrack remix announces the fighters and genuine wonderment takes over. Then the CGI hits. Those ships in the opening scenes were not outliers. They were not done just to save money to do the real fight justice. No, rather the whole film abuses CGI animation. The stylish hand drawn frames randomly drop out in favor of abhorrent 3D models. The designs are not well done either. They look as if someone tried to sneak in a melted action figure and try their hand at stop motion. This drastic change in style occurs frequently throughout the second half and looks worse every time.
Trumping Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan should not have taken a herculean effort. Yet, Dragon Ball Super: Broly managed to fall short. Even with the best choreographed fight in all of Super done to electrifying remixes of classic songs, it could not stay away from the CGI temptation. Unfortunately, the CGI interruptions in the climatic fight are so dreadful that Dragon Ball Super: Broly cannot be taken seriously. Replacing the charm of the original with cheap and clunky effects erases any ground gained by reimagining the legendary Saiyan’s origin.
