Dragon Ball Z: Cooler’s Revenge – Review

Oh snap! Frieza has a brother: Cooler! And with his powerful Armored Squadron, he has come to Earth seeking revenge. Cooler will not rest until the man who destroyed his brother is vanquished, even if that means blowing up the entire planet. The transformations in this movie are incredibly sick, like Cooler reaching his fourth form and this film also features the debut of Super Saiyan Goku. A short, to the point film which all Dragon Ball Z fans can appreciate. However, it was annoying on the American voice track is the strange Cooler henchman who for some reason is dubbed as having a French accent. You listen to the Japanese track and he is not voiced any differently than any other character and while this may make him a bit more unique in the dubbers minds to me it makes him very annoying.

The soundtrack is pretty sick. Not only does it feature great songs by great rock bands like Disturbed and Drowning Pool, the songs are used to increase the awareness of what’s going on (the best example is when Goku finally is able to transform, at which point “Change” by the Deftones begins to play), plus it’s great to hear Disturbed going “Ahh, Ahh!” while Goku and Cooler are fighting. Goku is injured early on in the film, which takes much of the focus off of him and places it instead on his son, Gohan, and his comrades. This gives the story an opportunity to make use of the supporting cast to a much greater extent. Cooler is a more compelling nemesis than usual, and I really enjoyed the fights throughout this short feature.

Sadly, Vegeta doesn’t appear until the next movie, The Return of Cooler (which will get a review eventually). Yamcha or Tien do not make appearances here either. Even though this fifth high-def Dragon Ball Z double feature really just boils down to Goku squaring off against Cooler for an hour and a half it is extreme fun and I can’t wait to introduce you guys to the second half. It really surprised me when Cooler blasted Piccolo through the shoulder, it was like a sudden mini-sonic boom! He is truely a great villian. Also, not to give away spoilers, but for the people who have seen the cover to Cooler’s Revenge and the guy on the front, as you probably know, is Cooler in his second form.

Dragon Ball Z: Cooler’s Revenge is the fifth movie in the DBZ movie series and a pretty good watch. The movie itself revolves around the hero Goku and a previous battle he fought against the mighty alien, Frieza. To sum it all up, friends, buy the Blu-ray as it has great PQ and it is the uncut version. I hear a lot of complaints about this, but it’s miles better than the Casiotone crapola which adorns the original Japanese. Overall a lot of fun and a decently thought-out story. Thumbs way up for this film!