Dragon Ball Z: Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan – Review

It’s about time we hear a little more about the Saiyan race. Dragon Ball Z fans have always been struggling with a tug of war to enjoy good movies based on the infamous series. With Broly: The Legendary Saiyan, the DBZ animators obviously got alot more money, so the anime and 3D effects will surprise you at times. The story is good too, considering you can only fit so much plot into a DBZ film. Vegeta is lured to the planet New Vegeta by a group of Saiyan survivors in hopes that he will be the king of their new planet. But when he finds that they have ulterior motives of universal domination, he and the Z Warriors must fight Broly, the legendary Super Saiyan. As everyone fights Broly, Picolo arrives with senzu beans in hand to heal the injured and the fight continues.

Three Super Saiyans and 1 Super Namek cannot even scratch him. So, he definitely lives up to his name. Ok, if you’re used to the other DBZ movies that have been released in the US recently, the beginning half an hour or so will probably seem a little boring to you. Especially if you don’t want to see any sort of plot or story and just want action. On the other hand, if you appreciate a good story this is a first for a DBZ movie. It also is the reason for the 70 minute running time while most of the other movies are 45 minutes. Next, I have to addresss the widescreen issue. All 13 Dragonball Z movies were in fact, created in FULLSCREEN. However, they were first released in Japanese theatres. So Toei Animation cut out some of the picture to make them widescreen. Then, once released on VHS, they took the chopped up widescreen version instead of the original fullscreen. Funimation, however, recieved the originals from Toei, and now, for the first time ever, we can see the original un-chopped movies, which is great.

The action is not dissapointing either, you get to see everyone fight, though there are only a couple signature moves used.  Anyways, Broly and Goku have troubled pasts which triggered this all out war between to two and the other Z fighters. For some reason Vegeta is completely out of character here. He shows fear of this warrior and freezes up at the sight of him basically conceding they had no chance against him. This is not something Vegeta has ever done in the regular series. Broly himself, voiced by Vic Mignogna, is a menacing new villain and his transformation scene is fantastically dark. Best part, is you don’t have to know anything about DBZ to love this movie. If it was in theaters and a little longer this would easily be a hit on the silver screen.

If you liked the other movies, don’t hesitate to buy this one, you will probably not be disappointed. Master Roshi is, as most times, a comedic persona and so is Krillin. They are completely nonessential to the plot and have no purpose except providing crude humor. So, aside from a few filler characters I can’t recommend this film enough! Last nitpick before I wrap up this anime review, is they end the fight with a punch to the gut. I was at least expecting a good old fashioned kamehameha wave. All in all, Dragon Ball Z fans should be pleased.