Rent Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022)

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (aka Doragon boru supa supa hiro) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Dragon Ball has always been more enjoyable when there’s a better personality behind the many punches, kicks, ki blasts, and world-ending fighting moves. In this aspect, Super Hero is one of the better Dragon Ball movies. It’s more than just an extended fight scene of a returning villain, although it does feature a return of a familiar force. It’s more than just showcasing a new fighting form, although it also has that. It’s not as robust as Battle of Gods, which realized the true potential of a party format, but it does have enough wit and cleverness to be an entertaining return to this saga.

What instantly makes this film more interesting is that the central character is not Goku but Piccolo. The usually stoic Namek warrior takes on extra responsibilities, offering a refreshing change from his usual brooding and training. Remaining friends with Gohan and his wife, Videl, leads to him becoming both a coach and babysitter for their daughter, Pan. Despite being reluctant to be used as childcare and even bitter about being paid in plushies, he still commits to Pan because she’s worth it. Even for being in preschool, she’s a spirited enough fighter, and her interactions with Piccolo are adorable and frank.

However, the bulk of the film revolves around the less compelling revival of the Red Ribbon Army. A pint-sized CEO, Commander Magenta, seeks this revival by tapping the involvement of the childish Dr. Hedo, grandson of the legendary Doctor Gero. Gero, having previously developed the evil androids and the big villain Cell, was killed off by his creations. Magenta indulges Hedo’s criminal nature and desire for revenge by committing to creating a new version of Cell. And by a new version, I mean a giant version with zero personality and lots of screaming.

The return of Red Ribbon Army and Cell are not that impressive since a story like that for Dragon Ball Super more or less writes itself. What makes it far more compelling is the dynamic between Piccolo and Pan. One of their finest moments is when Pan is targeted at her preschool by an RRR goon and she defends herself right in front of the teacher. Piccolo plays this off beautifully as a training exorcise about not trusting strangers and later gets Pan to play along with his infiltration plan. Scenes like this are great, and I loved how the climax of the film more or less involves Pan realizing her full potential before she ever hits Kindergarten.

While the choice in cell-shaded CGI is unique for this film, there’s still a lot of narrative fat in staging this tale. Trying to keep up with the TV series run of Dragon Ball Super, the film goes out of its way to place all the characters. The asides of Goku and Vegeta training off the planet while the cat-god Beers indulges in ice cream is not the least bit interesting. I’d rather the film focus on the funnier moments of personality, as when Piccolo and Bulma quarrel over the wishes from the collected Dragon Balls. Even Piccolo’s new form revealed in this film has a better staging for never being fully explained and is just a genuine surprise. I’ve heard the manga will explain this later as Piccolo has absorbed some godpowers. All you need to know is that Piccolo can now turn his skin orange and punch harder.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is on the higher scale of a Dragon Ball movie, even if it still has many annoying traits that seem to come bundled with every feature. It’s a constant battle between the mentor-student relationship of Piccolo and Pan against the onslaught of lore and less exciting/underdeveloped characters. I don’t really care that Doctor Hedo is a criminal brat who wants to live up to his father’s legacy. But Piccolo teaching Pan how to fly and shoot ki blasts? I could watch a whole movie on just those scenes.