Directed by Tatsuya Nagamine

Written by Akira Toriyama

The new Dragonball Super Broly movie is better than it has any right to be. Broly was always a legendary character in the DBZ lore, despite having a weak and simple history. But here, Toriyama has retconned all the prior fare of Broly (was it even considered canon?), and has revised his history in much more effective ways. The changes are fairly simple, but just make so much more sense. The threat of Broly’s natural existence would scare King Vegeta into exiling him.

As is such with any origin story, there’s a lot of talking here. A lot of information streamed through great callbacks to the original show and movies, and reimagined events that we all know of. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It does really well.

The pacing goes something like this: half the movie is explanations, half the movie is fighting. The first half does drag at times, but it’s so well made that you know it’s going somewhere. Plus it’s very funny, with Frieza having many of the best laugh out loud moments.

And where it goes is awesome. The showdown that takes up the second half is incredible. And especially the fight between Goku and Broly will exhilarate all the old fans and the new. The animation is brilliant, fucking amazing visuals stimulating our senses like any new age movie should. And the shift in styles is so inventive, with the camera swirling around insanely, breathing with the action like I’ve never seen in the show before.

I grew up with DBZ, as did just about the whole world. I never kept up with Super, but this is the kind of movie that makes me want to. DBZ is still as ludicrous as ever, which is why it’s still good, and why it’s remained relevant and important after all this time. This addition will give the fans what they want, and setups future iterations that I will welcome with open arms. The ending of the fight is anti climactic, and somewhat of a letdown. But it does make sense, and I’ll take it seeing as how any sequel film might have unlimited space for potential now that this one has set the ground work.

Oh also, the music is outlandish but epic and cool as hell. Some weird shit that accompanies this journey, but I was so down for the ride.