Dragon Ball Z: Movie IV

After leaving my interest in DBZ, I found a copy of DBZ Movie 4 and figured “what the hell, I used to like this stuff a lot, maybe I’ll enjoy this.” Problem was, back then I was really into the flashy lights and repetitive types of fighting. Now I look back and wonder why no one ever bothered to point out the flaws in my former obsession.

You must be wondering why the sudden change of heart. Well let’s just say one gets tired of the same old routine of: some new evil threatens the world, Goku’s friends arrive, get beaten into a pulp, then Goku arrives, pummeling ensues, the two sides struggle to attain a higher power level than each other, and eventually the “greatest action hero of all time” wins… an hour and thirty real minutes later and it’s all over. Then there are the characters from the series, which never once do I see any change in maturity or personality or anything for that matter, these characters stayed the same through out. Not only did these characters not develop in the movie but also did very little contribution to help move the story along unless you count whistling and giving Goku moral support. Also just a small tidbit, Goku never even goes Super Sayain as the title of the movie leads us to believe.

Leaving the static plot and characters alone for the moment, lets move on to animation, one of the only redeeming qualities of this movie. The fight scenes improved a lot from the previous movies and the sagas that had played in Japan at that point in time. The smooth animation combined with some decently choreographed fight scenes made the movie somewhat interesting.

Overall, this movie was horrible. In all honestly you’re better off just not watching it. However, if you feel an urge to see repetitive fight scenes, then by all means watch it, but just be warned.