Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone (1989)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Fresh and Exciting

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A pretty good prequel to the Dragon Ball Z Series overall. The major downfall of this film is the scripts for the voice actors. Everything they say seems rushed to make sure it fills in with the mouth movements of the characters. The voices are also fairly emotionless, "Just another day on the job" kinda deal.The fighting sequences are what you can expect from Dragon Ball, fast paced and entertaining, but ultimately end anti-climactic and rather quickly. The ending of this fight also doesn't fit very well with the show's timline, the example I can think of off the top of my head being the fact that Gohan's burst of power that pushes Garlic Jr. into the Dead Zone is never mentioned during the Vegeta Saga of the show where none of the shows characters appear to know how strong Gohan really is.The film does have some good points though, the main one being that it is entertaining enough to watch for 40 minutes or so without getting bored.

Some of the Dragon Ball Z movies were great but confusing. The movies are only mentioned once in the series, otherwise, they never happened in the show. This is one that happened. Garlic Jr. The second worse villain in DBZ history next to Android 17. The movie was pretty good but with a different villain and not this stupid Dead Zone thing, it might of been a pretty good retelling of Gohan's first burst of power. Honestly I'm not a big fan of the early films because I don't like the voices and the villains don't reflect with anything from the TV series. One, two, and three all have their own, new but sad villains. Meanwhile the rest have some villain that have something to do with the show like Frieza's brother Cooler.

This movie didn't do so well with me. It had it's moments. Such as the weapon fighting between Goku, Nicky and Ginger but the plot was all to familiar ie: Vegeta. Points of the movie seemed odd also. Such as Kami saying Piccolo had been killed by Goku, yet Kami showed barley any signs of dying himself. Also being so mentally connected he would never make the mistake of thinking Piccolo was dead when by all means he wasn't. Also Garlic Jr. informing his crew that he intended to keep Gohan as a disciple seemed lamely put, as he showed no signs of even bothering to entertain the boy. There was barley any background to the movie, it was just start to finish.I did like Goku's new persona though, rather cocky. It was a nice change. As for original characters I didn't find anything interesting (except that Nicky and Ginger pulled swords from their limbs!) They were all stupid and with very annoying voices. Give the bad guys voices that suit for once! Also why would three strong warriors (Sancho, Nicky and Ginger)follow the leadership of Garlic Jr, he wasn't smart, strong, or even witty! It just seemed to me that the characters in this film (all characters) were running around like headless chickens. Yet it was the 1st dbz film so obviously this was a training ground for all the rest.

First let me say that compared to the other Dragonball Z movies, Dead Zone is the only one which can possibly fit in with the timeline set by the episodes. It takes place before the series, and thus runs no risk of contradicting anything. Although the translations of Japanese animation into English is usually poor, I found the character of Goku to be, as always, the perfect combination of super hero and down to earth dad. Gohan's hidden power, which even Goku is unaware of at this time, is amazing, and he is definitely his father's son in the way that it comes out when his friends and loved ones are suffering. A must see for DBZ fans.