Dragon Ball Z : Le Combat fratricide

Wow, this movie was awesome back in the day. I am pretty sure this was the first Dragon Ball Z movie I saw. It was on Toonami once when they showed anime movies on Fridays. But anyways, looking back on it today, I can see that this movie is above average for a DBZ movie (it really holds it ground, seeing as the newer movies look 10x better than this one), it is far better than LORD SLUG and BROLY's SECOND COMING. The action was great and the main villain was enjoyable. The story isn't predictable (for DBZ), and the music and voice acting was pretty decent. But it can't compete with the far superior movies, such as FUSION REBORN, WRATH OF DRAGON, COOLER's REVENGE, BOJACK UNBOUND, and SUPER ANDROID 13. 7/10

This is another good "Dragonball Z" movie, but I don't think it's one of the best. I think it's mostly because of the villain. He looks just like Goku and I kind of think that was a bit too obvious to represent as an evil counterpart to him. He doesn't have much depth and I felt like they could have done more with him. Hey, we get an environmental message in the series! It's kind of weird to see the Dragon Balls being used for something like that. Besides this, it's still quite watchable.

This introduces Gohan's pet dragon, Icarus. Alright, I'm not sure if he appears in the later movies, but it's interesting to meet this character. I think it's a good idea to have a main character with a pet. There really is something you could do with that and it works here. At first, I thought they wouldn't go all the way and make Gohan the great ape, but they did! The plot is also pretty cool. I like the idea of a giant tree, especially with all the details with the roots. It's a pretty original idea. Turles (I thought his name was pronounced "Turuls" and not "Tur-less") has some colorful henchmen too. ***

Most DBZ fans think that the earlier DBZ movies suck because the heroes aren't as strong as they are in the more recent sagas of the series, but I totally disagree. I'm pretty sure that this is one of the best DBZ movies ever made.

The FUNimation version (the old uncensored one) is surprisingly well handled. Well, most of the voices are very annoying, but I'm glad that they kept the original music score and were allowed to put the word "hell" in the script. The script is fairly well written and they didn't add as much annoying sound effects as they did in the dubbed versions of the previous movies.

I don't have many complaints about the dub, although some of those Canadian voice actors have unbelievably annoying voices! Anyway, on to the plot - magnificent! Simply the one of the best non-manga adaptation DBZ plots ever. There are plot holes and differences in some of the concepts in this movie and those of the series, but that's just so that the story could be more entertaining. Really good story!

I sincerely recommend this movie, as well as the previous two, their dubbed versions especially. Of course, many of the voices in them are very annoying and there are some really annoying sound effects too, but it's still more enjoyable to listen to them than to read subtitles throughout the entire movie.

Although I gave this movie an 8/10, I didn't like it quite as much as the other Dragonball Z movies. The whole reason was the ending. I don't want to give anything away, but it seemed like they got 45 minutes of the movie done and said "Uh-oh, we made this movie too long! We have to think of some way to end it, fast!"... The final battle was somewhat of a disappointment. If they would have spent a little more time and made a really excellent ending to match the rest of the movie, it could have been so much better. Still a must see for any DBZ fan.

While whatever little happens in this movie is top notch and nothing less than spectacular, it only lasts for 1 hour and ends up less than satisfying especially after the screwed up ending. The fight scenes are the best of any DBZ episode and the special effects are superb. However, there's really not much story and too much time is wasted on the usual 'staring' present in DBZ. To illustrate how good the few scenes and action are, take note that the majority of the scenes in the DBZ series title song are from this movie. The animation standard is much better than the average DBZ episode. A major shortcoming is that Turles and his team spend too little time fighting. They should have had much longer fight scenes when it came to his team and they were too easily defeated. However, I prefer this to the Brolly movie any day. There is very little in this movie but that little is top notch stuff. Definitely a must see. Is it a must purchase? I really can't say the same.