Dragon Ball Super: Superhero
Alright, so I went to see this in the theater and came away entertained, but mostly because of several moments that had impact within the movie.
There was laughter, some pain, some cool call backs, and one epic fight. This film was basically to give Gohan and Piccolo a power boost and holy hell did they need it I'm order to become part of whatever new arc Super is going with next.
The film goes backs to its roots of Dragon Ball where Goku fought the Red Ribbon army and Dr Gero, giving us a little smack in the face with information if you didn't see Dragon Ball, if you haven't I suggest you do.
The leader of the Red Ribbon brings in a young genius who is the grandson of Dr Gero and has one goal In life, to make the ultimate Android, which suits the Red Ribbon leader fine, he just wants to take over the world. Obvious this kid,who is in his mid 20s, he makes his Androids but both he and the two androids are kind of manipulated to believe they are the good guys trying to stop the evil Capsule Corp along with their invading aliens of Goku, Vegeta, Buu, Gohan, and Piccolo. They are led to believe they are dangerous creatures trying to take the Earth.
I like the fact that both sides don't know much of what's going on. The androids are manipulated and Piccolo is just confused by this whole thing.
The story is so-so, they really lay the plot on thick for the beginning, but it works. The animation was a little weird at first for me, but I got used to it quick. The fights was ok, but the last battle was pretty intense and epic. Having the big hitters off planet during this kind of story was fun, it's also needed, Goku and Vegeta are training Broly far away from the mess that comes from Earth.
We get a few new characters here which I wasn't high on at first but they grew on me, probably because of their good nature but on the wrong side of things, plus their voice actors did a great job as Gamma 1 and 2.
I also loved how this is basically a Piccolo movie, yeah you heard that right, Piccolo is the featured Super in this film. We get all sorts of fun stuff from him in this movie. We get that he's training Pan, Gohan's daughter which is awesome and the fact that she's way further along at 3 years old than Gohan was, showing she has potential. We also get several moments telling us, the audience, that Gohan has the most potential to become even stronger than Goku if he just trained, which is reiterated when Piccolo yells at Gohan for taking it easy and not training at all.
Piccolo goes undercover after surviving an attack from Gamma 2, where he dresses like a Red Ribbon army solider for some funny moments. He infiltrates the secret base and finds out these people are set to destroy the heroes of Earth and he needs to intervene to protect the planet.
The movie is somewhat slow with minor fights here and there, but it's all buildup to the final event as Piccolo finds out that not only did the Red Ribbon create two androids to take them all down, but they had recreated Cell but haven't turned him on as of yet, he laid dormant as of now.
I didn't expect Cell at all, so I sat there saying holy shit and wondered if Goku would somehow sense that and return. I'm happy he didn't because they would of taken these characters moments that they deserved away.
Pan is so cute! Pan is also kidnapped by an RR soldier and disguised Piccolo. Pan makes it a game of pretend and goes along with it all. The main reason is to get Gohan to leave his house to find her, which he would then need to fight the androids he had no idea about on their territory, giving them a big advantage.
Let's just get to it. The battle, that's what we're here for right?
The fights were fun enough but semi short. Gohan vs Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 vs Piccolo didn't last too long, but it gave you some commentary from them all, a dialogue between characters and started showing that these Gamma characters aren't bad, they believe they are superheroes. This is shown multiple times but more so when Piccolo who is still in RR attire, picks up Pan and pretends to hurt her in order to piss Gohan off and get him stronger. Gamma 1 yells and says that's not what good guys do, so the turn was inevitable.
With all the chaos happening and the Gamma's turning good mid fight, the RR was done, but the main baddie released Cell and all hell breaks loose. Cell is powerful and intense, he's also huge. He reminds me of Broly, but ten times larger. He's just a monster, I'm not sure he thinks or is just in kill mode nonstop, but he went on the attack right away. The animation goes full awesome mode at this point. Gohan, Piccolo, The Gammas, Goten, Trunks, Android 18 attack Cell but it's not enough. Even Piccolos new power up can't stop Cell. The Gammas do everything possible to stop this beast too, one even sacrifices himself to stop the monster. That shit was pretty sad too be honest. This entire fight is centered around Piccolo telling Gohan that he is even stronger than he realizes, that he needs to let go and understand that.
Gohan goes Beast mode. It was pretty awesome, Red eyes, white long pointy hair, holy shit it was cool. This form also showed Cell had nothing on him, he took a full punch to the face and let that shit happen, and pretty much said, "is that all you got", these God damn cocky Saiyans man. I was also cheering in my head as he used Piccolos Special Beam cannon on Cell to kill him. That attack was pretty dope.
This anime movie gets an 84 out of a 100 Kamehameha's from me or 8.4 out of 10 Special beam cannons. The movie was fun, entertaining, and had a decent buildup to a great last battle with two powerful characters getting some much needed boosts to their powers along with some well deserved movie screen time away from Goku and Vegeta.