Well; it may have taken 5 films to get to this point, but we’ve finally hit probably the most solid DBZ movie that i’ve seen up to this point.

A direct sequel to ‘Coolers Revenge’ the film picks up a short time after the events of that movie and Dendae calling Goku and the team to head to new Namek, as a mysterious metallic object has latched itself to the surface, and appears to be absorbing the life force of the planet, and kidnapping the Namekians…On arriving it’s revealed that Cooler SOMEHOW survived being fired into the sun, and has merged with the alien metal object to become an even more unstoppable killing machine, hungry for vengence against Goku and the team.

And this is the first DBZ movie i’ve seen so far thats managed to really properly capture the tone and vibe that Ive been looking for in a DBZ movie. Everything up to this point has kind of felt like its been solely grounded in ‘Dragonball’ aesthetics and vibes with just a sprinkle of DBZ lore up to the beginning of the ‘Saiyan Saga’. Which is FINE….But its not what I come to DBZ for. With the reintroduction of Vegeta, the franchise FINALLY feels like the DBZ I know and love!

The plot is hardly the most original thing in the world, but its weird, dark and interesting enough to more than hold my interest, the art direction is creative, detailed and had some genuinely gorgeous moments included. The scripts strong, well paced and structured with some really nice dialogue choices and some genuinely funny moments at times.

The voice cast really give it there all. The score sounds perfect and the payoff is satisfying. Honestly? My only real criticism is, clocking in at 42 minutes this feels a little *too* fast. The story of this movie would have EASILY been 30-45 episodes of the anime, and while I think stretching it out THAT long would almost certainly have been overkill, I think an extra 20 minutes on this one to flesh out Cooler, more properly reitroduce Vegeta and get into the finer details of our mysterious space object would have really helped to give this thing the breathing room it needed to be absolutely top tier.

As it stands? this is the first DBZ movie I can fully and enthusiastically recommend, ESPECIALLY if you’ve only watched the anime before… I had a really good time with it, and if you struggled with the early DBZ movies, maybe starting with ‘Coolers Revenge’ and picking up from there onwards might be the best way to go.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dragon-ball-z-the-return-of-cooler/