‘Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan’ is the 8th film in the DBZ movie franchise, the first of a trilogy of ‘Broly’ movies from this era, and one of the most universally loved movies in the DBZ series. Though; having seen it now, im not entirely sure why…Dont get me wrong! I liked it…but LOVED it? thought it was the best movie in the entire original run???…I wouldnt go that far.

The film opens with Goku and Chichi waiting on an interview to try and get Gohan into a prestigeous school, when Goku recieves a communication from King Kai asking him to head to his location asap. While this is going on the rest of the gang are enjoying Cherry blossom season by having a picnic (and a few drinks) in the park, when a mysterious spaceship lands, hundreds of soldiers emerge along with a Saiyan, who immediately make a B-line for Vegeta and inform him that they’ve been looking for him for decades, and that he is to return to ‘New Vegeta’ the future Saiyan homeworld to rule the new land as king, but ALSO to help them track down and destroy ‘The Legendary Super Saiyan’ a Saiyan folk lore character of unbridled power and destruction, who…is now apparently REAL and needs to be destroyed to ensure the peace of New Vegeta.

Vegeta agrees, Trunks decides to follow him, and a handful of the rest of the gang end up being accidentally abducted for extra ‘Shenanigans’.

On landing however, they find quite a different story taking place, no sign of the Saiyan can be found, and on exploring ‘New Vegeta’ the gang find the planets enhabitants largely enslaved. When Goku arrives Him and Vegeta are introduced to ‘Broly’ a timid and quiet soul who our new mystery Saiyan ‘gifts’ to Vegeta in order to help him find this murderous Legendary Saiyan…However it may transpire that Broly isnt all he’s cracked up to be at a glance…and that the gang may have a fight for there very lives…and a mission to save a planet at risk of being totally destroyed.

Broly is an interesting beast in terms of ‘Dragonball’ lore, because its the first time in these movies that we get some actual Saiyan lore sprinkled into these films. Broly is a somewhat interesting villain, though not a particularly complex one, and thats ultimately the biggest thing that hamstrings the production. The Villain cant be that deep or complex, and once its established who IS the villain(s) of this piece, the film kind of starts to fall apart a bit, as it devolves into just endless fight montages, and not particularly creative ones.

The film clocks in at 72 minutes, and seemingly has the opposite problem to the last 2 films, they ran too short and needed 10-20 minutes to flesh out the context..this runs about 10-15 minutes too long and could have benefitted from the back end being tightened up a bit. This being the first of 3 films, I appreciate they need to set the ground foundations for this lore and these characters. But there were moments here that felt like they hammered their points a little TOO much.

That being said, the story itself is a pretty fun one for DBZ, this definitely felt like it benefitted from being a movie over being an arc in the anime, the pacings a little slower than the last two movies, but that slower pace does benefit it more than detract from it. Broly as a character design is fun, the endings a little underwhelming, but it compensates with some genuinely humerous moments and some really nice ‘iconic’ art direction and line delivery moments. and a killer score.

All in all? this is another one that I could recommend to someone who hasnt watched any of the DBZ movies. its maybe not as good as ‘Super 13’ or ‘Return of Cooler’ but it has enough going on to keep you hooked, and I came away from it glad I finally checked it out. AND! as an added bonus, now all this lores been established, it should make the next Broly movie even tighter and more solid! so I have that to look forward to!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dragon-ball-z-broly-the-legendary-super-saiyan/