Dragon Ball Super: Broli is an amazing movie and the best the franchise has to offer. For those curious, it does not spoil the ending of the Tournament of Power arc of Dragon Ball Super. The movie goes back to the beginning of everything when King Cold retires and gives Freeza the crown, thus making him the leader of all of the Saiyans and the Freeza Force. The movie explores the past, building backstory and adding insight to the Saiyan race before its destruction at the hands of Freeza. Gine, Goku and Raditz’s mother, is finally seen, and a more kind Bardock is seen as well, especially compared to his appearance in the now retconned OVA Bardock: The Father of Goku. The time Broli spends showing off interactions between the characters and building up the backstory of the new characters pays off later in the movie. Toriyama has re-written the story of Broli and his father Paragus, giving them a tragic backstory that serves as a motive for vengeance later on. This is a wonderful addition to the characters that is rarely seen in the series (especially Jiren in Super) and makes the two characters ones you can care about. For once, I did not want to see Goku take a beating before one-shotting his enemy like in the first thirteen movies, but I hoped for a different resolution instead such as the common trope in this series where a foe turns into an ally like this happened with Yamcha, Vegeta, Krillin, Majin Boo, etc.
Also per the common traits of this series are the laughs, which are not forgotten. However, they are not as commonplace as they were in 2015’s Resurrection ‘F’. The jokes are quality and garnered plenty of laughs from the audience I was with, even if there were not many in the film. Broli combines all of the best parts of Dragon Ball into one amazing movie: superb animation, characters with depth and reason for their actions, a beautiful art style, a great score, good laughs, and awesome battle scenes. Norihito Sumitomo scored this movie and did his best work since 2013’s God and God. The music for this movie is miles ahead of the previous movie where I found the music to be lackluster, complimentary instead of additive, and generally minimalist. Instead of chanting, humming, or a similar sound that is short and repeating in different ways throughout the movie, Sumitomo uses many different instruments to create different melodies that convey the emotions a scene requires.
However, there is a chorus that chants throughout the battle scenes that, as small as it may be, I find to be one of the worst and most offending pieces of music ever used in the franchise. During the battle scenes, certain parts have a group chanting the name of whomever currently has the upper hand in the battle. It is obnoxious, repugnant, and out of place. It changes the tone and generally sounds awful. If you take your least favorite/most disliked composer of the franchise whether it’s Shunsuke Kikuchi, Bruce Faulconer, Kenji Yamamoto, Norihito Sumitomo, or anyone else not mentioned and then multiply your disgust one thousand fold, that is how off-putting the chanting in these scenes is. It’s bad enough that I’m spending a paragraph writing about how terrible it is, and unfortunately, these vocals are part of the score itself by Sumitomo so it is unlikely they will be removed for the home video release.
While it most likely is my opinion and not one most other viewers will share, I found the ending of the movie to be weak. It has closure, but not in the way I expected. I cannot give more of an explanation without spoiling the ending so I will just leave it at this. I will admit that I am somewhat pessimistic, so it may be my gripe alone to bear. However, don’t let either of these two detractors stop you from seeing the movie. The people who worked on this movie whether it be Toriyama, the animators, the artists, the musicians, or anyone else put their passion into this movie. It deserves to be seen if you call yourself a fan of Dragon Ball.
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