Film Review - Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F (2015)

Resurrection F is the latest Dragon Ball Z movie following last year's Battle of Gods and this time the villainous Frieza once the ruler of a vast galactic Empire is suffering in Hell whilst his Empire has crumbled so Sorbet plans to use the Dragon Balls to bring him back to life and once doing that one thing remains on his mind: Vengeance against Goku.

I was an ENORMOUS fan of the Dragon Ball Z TV series in 2000 and 2001 which was when the series at its peak (the films continued later on after that) and I was such a fan that I nearly took up martial arts as a result but I didn't and over time I lost interest in the series but when I read about this new film with Frieza (the series' best villain) coming back on the big screen well how could I say No.

And I am very glad I went to this as I thought it was great fun on the big screen, the film brilliantly blends both traditional and computer animation plus the film very nicely uses the ensemble of the characters in the battles and the main showdown of Goku vs Frieza was awe inspiring to the point where I felt a bit of a chill in my back and hands plus the film has some terrific moments of comedy that made the very large crowd I saw it with laugh a lot out loud.

But despite all of these strong positive points the film is sadly pretty forgettable and the reason I feel this is the case is that outside of the vengeance goal Frieza's return has no real substance to it, in the series he was the master of the universe, the fiercest and most powerful warrior of them all and it took literally everything the Z fighters had to stop him (despite criminally letting Yamcha, Tien and Chiaotzu sit it out when they should have been there on Namek to help their friends) so much so that it broke Goku to the point where he became the legendary Super Saiyan (THE 1 fighter Frieza feared the most.)

Here his return just has no substance to it, no sense of stakes like the fight with Frieza in the series had and also Yamcha and Chiaotzu's absence was hard to forgive for me whereas the Tree of Might (the 3rd film in the series and one I must have watched again and again and again) had I think the elements where DBZ works best:

- It has the ensemble of the characters fighting together
- It has a strong villain with a drive and a purpose
- It has the heroes being pushed to the brink

And lastly it has a sense of stakes to it whereas here I just didn't feel that and as a result I just ended up forgetting about it the next day and it saddens me somewhat to say that because I really was looking forward to this in a big way and lastly I also kept thinking afterwards that the characters from the X-Men could've defeated these guys particularly characters like Cyclops, Quicksilver, Magneto and Xavier.

And so that was Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F, a fun if slightly forgettable and maybe disappointing film in the long run, worth it if you're a fan but don't expect too much from this film, 2 and a half out of 5.