How come nobody ever told me how awesome this movie is? I came away from this kitchy mix-up of hip hop and martial arts humming the cheesy theme song. Villain Sho'Nuff is shockingly entertaining. And he's played by Julius Carry, Brisco County Jr's Lord Bowler!
Forget everything you know about Jumanji, this is the best dangerous board game movie ever. Smart, believable kid actors and a really cool robot put this movie over the top.
The planet Earth in the DBZ cartoon is not quite our world. There's crazy technology and magic, not to mention dinosaurs running around. I figured most of that would go out the window with a live action installment, but not so. Little by little, the movie introduces the world as a fantasy place. A world where you bury your grandfather without a funeral and bandits dig holes to catch passing travelers. When the heroes had to pass through the fields of lava, I had a new level of respect for the audacity of director James Wong. So if the movie builds an iconic world, where it fails is with the characters and the acting. I didn't dislike Justin Chatwin as Goku at first -- I liked his geeky nervousness around his classmates -- but later he is asked to deliver some preposterous lines. Thinking back to the TV show, Goku was always a little weird. Yes, he would say some stupid stuff, but you get away with more when you're a cartoon character with giant-sized hair. In the movie, Chatwin's hair goes from semi-believable to just plain dumb, much like the character. As a kids movie, it has heart and some pretty good action, but I probably wouldn't like it much without being familiar with the source material.
People who found Crank offensive should NOT watch Crank 2. It's 100 times as outrageous. I liked it well enough, but after a while I missed the grounded nature of the first film. Ha! Yes, the first Crank was grounded by comparison. A few times the story drifted away from Statham's Chev Chelios, and that's where it seemed to lose focus. Looking forward to Crank 3, though!