Be warned that this review is spoilery...
This was the theatrical release I had been waiting on all summer. I knew it was going to epic. The follow-up to 2013's Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F' features one of the classic Dragon Ball Z villains and shows us him in a brand new light.
Obviously, I'm talking about Freeza. Freeza was the last truly organic villain to terrorize the Z fighters. After the Freeza saga, all we had to deal with in terms of villains were androids and mystically created beings. Freeza was very much a mortal creature that dealt in things like planet-selling, slavery, and mass genocide. To me, Freeza was the last truly evil villain because he wasn't created to be evil. Freeza merely chose to be evil. Majin Buu and Cell were more powerful, but Dragon Ball Z was at its high point with Freeza even if the original anime fight with Freeza was insanely drawn out to last four hours in running time.
Although, there were definitely questions I had concerning his new movie appearance. How the hell could Freeza compete with a Super Saiyan God Goku? Mecha Freeza was easily laid to waste by Future Trunks (admittedly before Mecha Freeza could really power up) and he had only been brought out of retirement in the main series afterwards for filler episodes. As well as forgettable appearances in Dragon Ball GT and the Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn movie. What could bringing Freeza back one more time accomplish? Freeza has been defeated and embarrassed just about more than any other villain in the series. What good was a movie about Freeza going to do anyone after everything else we had witnessed?
Well, obviously this movie was going to end in his defeat, but this movie did surprise me. His Golden Freeza form was pretty badass. So badass he could go toe toe with Goku's Super Saiyan God SS form. He even could have won. In fact, there were times he should have won easily and not just against Goku.
But is it really that plausible that Freeza could compete with a Super Saiyan God SS Goku in only four months because he decided to actually train for once? Hmm... I don't know. It sounds plausible, I guess. Although, even Golden Freeza and Super Saiyan God SS Goku still can't touch Beerus and Whis, who were comfortable eating dessert and chatting about strawberries while watching Goku and Freeza create city-sized craters in the earth.
And once again Gohan is relegated to the "useless supporting character that can only watch" role. Apparently, he's the new Yamcha. And Yamcha and Chiaotzu weren't even in this movie. Not that they could have done anything to stop Golden Freeza, but if Tien, Kuririn, and even Kame-sen'nin can put up a fight than I would have thought that... And what about Majin Buu, Goten, and Trunks? They were conveniently absent the entire movie.
But a scene with Android 18 and Kuririn early on set things straight for the rest of the movie. 18 questioned the logic of Kuririn going to fight Freeza when 18 was way stronger than Kuririn, but Kuririn went anyway because it was the cool thing to do.
So there.
Hell, overanalyzing this is going to get me nowhere. Thankfully, there's plenty of comedy and action to keep things moving, but the best moment of this movie is when Vegeta joins the battle. Cheers everywhere. For a second it looked like Goku really was going to hog all of the battle, but then Vegeta enters the fray and actually does something. In every single movie appearance Vegeta always makes a badass appearance only to get absolutely wasted five seconds later, but this time he actually comes so close to defeating that first major villain on his DBZ career... until the world literally ends. Yes, the world ends when Vegeta finally get a chance to kill a major villain. Damn it. But at least he became a Super Saiyan God SS in one hell of a cool plot twist. Take that, Goku!
Vegeta has always been a favorite character so it's great to actually see him ascend beyond Super Saiyan 2. So I say it's well worth having the world end in order to witness to Prince's new found greatness.
Don't worry about the world ending, though. This is Dragon Ball Z so the world ending is almost an everyday occurrence and thanks to an insanely convenient Whis ability Goku manages to steal all of Vegeta's glory and save the world.
This movie was definitely satisfactory and I liked it better overall than Battle of Gods. I also believe that at long last I have come across the best of the Dragon Ball Z movies. Sorry, Broly, but Freeza has you beat. This one is the best. The sleeper has awakened. Resurrection 'F', you are the prince of Dragon Ball Z movies.
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