Dragon Ball Z: Los rivales más poderosos

This is the fifth Dragon Ball Z movie to be released during the series' Japanese TV run. When Cooler finds out that his brother Frieza was defeated by a Saiyan, he and his three henchmen go to Earth to seek revenge and destroy the planet as Piccolo, Gohan, and Krillin attempt to help an injured Goku get his strength back and defend the Earth. This movie was an improvement over the lasr DBZ movie as the plot centered around a villain closely related to a major villain in the DBZ TV series. This DBZ movie attempts to try some new things, such as putting more of a focus on Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan in the battles and spicing the battle sequences with samurai-film-like elements. As DBZ fans will enjoy the battles and the villain, this DBZ movie's plot suffers from being a bit shallow as it only focuses on the villain's plan to destroy Earth. Also, DBZ fans may be a bit disappointed by the movie's short running time of 47 minutes.

GRADE: 2.5 out of 5

Dragon ball z cooler revenge is a masterpieces cooler is a fantastic villain the soundtrack kick ass my favorite song out in this movie is drowning pool told you so I still think they should bring him back in super I give a+

This film features the first of two appearances of Cooler, the older brother of Frieza. A creature that is going to go after the one who killed his brother though he does not really care all that much for his younger sibling. This one like the previous Z movie "Lord Slug" tried to sync a rocking soundtrack to the movie. However, this one had mixed results at best as they just did not do the job of the previous film. Also annoying on the American voice track is the strange Cooler henchman who for some reason is dubbed as having a French accent. You listen to the Japanese track and he is not voiced any differently than any other character and while this may make him a bit more unique in the dubbers minds to me it makes him very annoying. The story has the gang all camping and of course their camping trip is interrupted by the arrival of Cooler and his men. Some good fights here and there, but also the need for more development a lot of these Z movies need. The final fight is a bit okay, and a bit to over quickly. Though you do get to see a fifth stage of the Frieza clan, though to me it just looked a lot like stage three to me. Once again though Vegeta is sadly absent from the movie, and considering how popular he is it is sad that he was in so few of the movies.

I think this is probably my favorite of the "Dragonball Z" movies before the new longer ones came out. It's mostly because I really do enjoy the notion of Freiza's brother appearing. I admit that it doesn't make much sense, because it would cause you to ask why Cooler doesn't want to avenge his father, King Kold. He obviously has more respect towards him than his brother. You could argue that he didn't find out about Freiza being killed by Future Trunks later, but he should have at least known that. This is good probably because of the film's beginning.

I just find it interesting where they set up the mythology of the series. Cooler is great as a villain and I really do like his final form. His voice is very nice and deep and he truly comes off as intimidating here. It's great to see Piccolo do a lot of damage to Cooler's henchman. By giving Cooler minions, it sets him up as a bigger villain. I can see why this guy had another movie based on him. The action is nice and epic and has most of what made the classic show so great. ***

There is a lot of good going for this movie. Piccolo gets to have some interesting action scenes. Injuring Goku so early in the story makes it so the rest of the crew has to be on stealth mode for a good stretch of the runtime. Having the heroes on the back foot and relying on sneaking around foes with scouters leads to more suspenseful sequences.

Cooler's second form, where he looks like Super Shredder, is also pretty cool. There are some memorable moments and visuals for the final fight and with Piccolo's fights.

But the villain's motivation is lazy, the characterization is dull, and the conclusion of the movie is pretty anti-climactic. Overall, a pretty average Dragon Ball Z movie.

Random fanboy rant: why didn't Gohan use the flying Nimbus instead of Icarus to fly him to Korin's tower? Was it just an unwritten rule that Icarus had to appear in this era of DBZ movies? Or was Gohan not pure of heart enough to ride the Nimbus? Think about it.