Dragon Ball Z Movie 05: Tobikkiri no Saikyou tai Saikyou

''Let him clean up his own mess, You have a lot to learn brother''.
- Cooler

This Movie like a lot of the other dbz films is a very simple yet a fun typical
45 minute film to watch. As the name suggest Cooler's Revenge is about Goku facing off against 1 of the major antagonist Frieza - To be precise his older brother Cooler who wants to take his vengeance out on goku for what happen to frieza.

The prologue starts of during the demise of goku's former Saiyan home world planet Vegeta's being destroyed by frieza, Overlooking the destruction in his spaceship along with his crew ... finding out that 1 of the spaceship getting away from the planet is heading to earth cooler delays the order and decides to let it go.

A few decades later Cooler Hears of frieza being defeated by goku that transform into a super saiyan. Cooler while annoyed by frieza's defeat,
He and his crew head to earth to kill goku and to avenge his younger brother's death and to restore his own family name to be feared in the universe once again. As you can see with most Dbz films the premise of its story is basic and of course easy to watch.

Cooler is Honestly without a doubt my favourite movie villain in the Db franchise I mean his name says it all, he is arrogant, remorseless and condescending not to mention he pretty much hates his brother frieza and the saiyans. He also exercises a greater control of power compare to that of frieza which makes him a dangerous foe for goku to fight against on this occasion. Cooler's Armoured squad are a blatant rip off of the Ginyu force and other nothing special.

The other characters are pretty much the same in the movie like the other movies as well as Piccolo who makes his role in the film in such a Badass way! The fight between goku and cooler was just unforgettable from cooler's Epic! Transformation which we find out is a transformation beyond that of frieza final transformation and of course it proves how deadly he can be in that form when he fights against goku which overwhelms goku like with frieza upper hand against him on namek in the series.

The music is fine but I like the songs more for the dub's US music score as it included some great heavy metal bands for the more intense action scenes. both sub and dub is good especially cooler's english voice actor
Andrew Chandler suited his role nicely as the villain.

Of course animation was the standard pretty much for its time and actually is okay.

overall quite an enjoyable simplistic film to say the least which I could only wish that cooler wasn't just a movie character but a character that was actually relevant within the series as well.

7 out of 10.

Dragonball Z is truly an amazing anime series. It survived for an unreal amount of time recycling the same stories over and over. It can never be accused of innovation, which brings us to the fifth movie in the copy and paste line up, Cooler's Revenge. This is not a movie that I could recommend to someone new to the franchise at all. This is definitely either for fans or those who are familiar with the main story. Before coming into this series, it would be a great idea to see the series up until the Frieza Saga for some type of clue; but the ... crazy thing is, this story doesn't exactly fall into continuity. I've noticed fans mention that this story could have taken place between the Trunks Saga and the Androids Saga, however, I don't exactly buy into that.

The plot follows Goku's son Gohan, as he attempts to save Goku's life by recovering the Senszu beans. Goku was viciously injured by one of Cooler's attacks, and is now kept hidden by Krillin from Cooler's forces whom are demolishing the forest in their search for all of them.

The production values deserves some credit. Visually, it's pretty good with some very nice backgrounds; the waterfalls look nice, and the night time setting has some gorgeous moments. There's also some decent moments here and there with the action, which consist of a decent amount of hand to hand and high energy attacks. However, it's Funimation's soundtrack that really stands out in the style department. The BGM consists of high tempo rock songs by Drowning Pool, Deftones, Breaking Point, and a few others. The music simply rocks covering up the bigger weaknesses.

Dragonball Z is something that is mainly action-driven, but I kind of found the action to be sort of lacking a little. The best scenes took place during the middle portion when Piccolo was battling Cooler's men. After that, the final battle scene just took a dive. The plot really isn't well paced, and it spins its wheels at times. In addition, you're not going to get much character development, and the villains are all cookie cutter to the extreme with no depth whatsoever. I would probably have enjoyed this more if the ending had not felt like one big jip. It felt way too gimmicky and terribly tacked on, which is something that becomes a trend in the later movies.

Cooler's Revenge actually goes by quicker than its run time states. This is mainly due to the sound track which seriously rules, and makes this movie extremely easy to get through. I do not recommend this to anyone besides diehard DBZ fans though. To my experience, they're the only ones who truly love it.

Highs: Soundtrack and production values

Lows: Weak first and final acts, stock bad guys

Ahhhh and it's back to lame again. Cooler and his gang are just a copypaste version of Frieza and his gang, and the entire story plays out as a low-stakes remake in a way... but with none of the tension because there's not much going on except for this purple dude who wants to beat up some monkey dudes.

This is sad, too, because this is technically the first Dragon Ball Z movie that could feasibly fit into a part of the timeline-- it works neatly as a side story in that three-year time gap where everyone's training and not much exciting happens. The story is ... wrapped around so tightly that it has zero ramifications for any other part of the story, so it actually works. Why only technically? Because for some reason, the entire cast is like 10% as powerful as they normally are; even in Super Sayian form, Goku is noticeably not as "blow up some mountains and then decimate the planet" as normal, and everyone takes Cooler as a huge threat but he appears to be significantly weaker than Frieza.

But... I'm probably judging it too harshly because I'm still desperately waiting for another enjoyable Dead Zone movie and none of these are stacking up. I thought Cooler would be... cool...