Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection of F
Hey I bought the Blu-Ray and finally saw this when I was one of the only people who cared about it! I am a huge Dragon Ball fan like most people in the West who watch anime, but I really never stopped loving it and it's still one of my GOAT. I really loved Battle of Gods which was to my surprise, they brought back DB with it's best movie yet and introduced Beerus and Whis who fit amazingly into the universe. The Super Saiyan God stuff is kind of silly yes, but seeing as it is now providing a background to DB Super I think it's fine.
When RoF was announced, me and others just went "Really?" After how great of an addition Beerus and Whis were I was expecting something else that was new. Freiza already came back once! I ain't even gonna count Fusion Reborn because he and Cell came back in that for a joke as well. Despite that, I was willing to suspend judgment until I actually saw it, which was a good idea because I
did like it. Freiza is iconic, very iconic, it's not that surprising he would return again. There is Jaco from Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, who is another good addition to the cast, so at least there is that.
First off, I find it hilarious that they used that 2008 Maximum the Hormone (Those guys who did the legendary second OP Death Note track) song about Freiza in this movie. It's screamo and hardly fits at all but I guess they just had to. When it started playing I was laughing hard. If you have never heard it,
here it is. Yep. This was actually in the movie.
The movie looks about as good as you would expect - far better then an average episode and decent for a movie. There is some odd CG here and there, not as bad as say the Berserk movies but semi distracting. That's mostly for the crowds, the CG for the 1v1 fight is decent enough, would be amazing in a TV series. The actual 1,000 man melee is pretty cool though, even if it may have been a tad too long, and even people like Tien and Roshi fight. Tien didn't bring Yamcha though cuz he is too weak (actually happened.) People are probably gonna be pissed in Super when Freiza takes out Gohan with one punch. Not as silly as Goku being knocked out of SSGSS by some kind of...ring laser thing? Dumb. Pretty stupid that Freiza didn't know Vegeta could turn Super Saiyan either, let alone SSGSS. Why would he not count on that? Anyway looking for solid continuity in Dragon Ball is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Yeah, Kid Buu was gonna rip the universe apart by screaming but these Ki blasts from people with the Ki of Gods just kinda smash a few rocks. So Freiza being able to fight on par with the Z Fighters after all the shit they did is explained by Freiza being a savant who never trained because he had no need. If he really wanted to, it would take only 4 months for him to equal to a power level of 1.3 Million! Which doesn't make any sense because he had a higher power level then that in his third form but WHATEVER I wish they would retcon the power level scaling and smash those stats like it's Warlords of Draenor, or better yet, never speak of them ever again. Power levels are stupid anyway and the people who still care about them are dumb.
Now here comes the stuff I didn't like. Sure there are continuity errors - how did they regen Freiza when the entire reason he was cyborged was because they can't regen to that degree, howcome when he came back he was in his first form and not his final one if he died in his final one and that's actually his original form, etc etc those are all small nitpicks you would expect from Toriyama and I already started doing that above, which I am gonna try to avoid. I think one of the biggest problems here is that there aren't any twists or turns. Everything is very obvious. Whis mentions he can turn back time, and he does at the end. Bulma offers Whis some food so he will come and help and he tells Goku and Vegeta in the nick of time. Right when it looks like Vegeta will actually win, nope, gotta be Goku. I think the implementation of SSGSS (if you are wondering, that stands for Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan. Yup.) In fact, they don't even call it SSGSS in the movie! Reminded me of G-Savior, where they never refer to the main Mobile Suit as a Gundam. Everyone is just kinda being handed out new forms like candy. When SS1, SS2 and SS3 happened the reveals were appropriately epic - I am sure all of you who grew up with the series can still recall those three moments. Super Saiyan God at least had a neat way to be activated, SSGSS doesn't feel special. It is lacking that punch that the Super Saiyan forms had. No "I am truth. Ally to good! Nightmare to you!" from Goku or anything equivalent. Not even an explanation besides "They trained hard." Freiza's new old SNES form is much the same way. Now I don't really want 7 minutes of screaming like with SS3, just...some kind of impact? Another problem is that the movie just ends. Like yep, they beat 'em. That's it. Seeya. Was pretty lackluster. Battle of Gods ended in a really atypical way for the series where Goku
doesn't win and Beerus and Whis leave while implying there are more things to come. I hope in Super this will be expanded on because it feels really limp.
Overall, 7/10. Not as good as Battle of Gods but solid fanservice for the most iconic part of the series. Now I ain't seen the other movies in a long time but I would most likely rank it with Fusion Reborn and the first Broly movie, that is to say - pretty good, worth watching if you are a fan. As I said in the first paragraph, I like Battle of Gods the most. Would I say no to Resurrection of "C"? No, probably not - the route is there to take, Cell already did that once when he came back after being blown up. I would be disappointed if that is the path they decided to take. Give me new shit!