Dragon Ball Z Movie 05: Tobikkiri no Saikyou tai Saikyou

Really underrated hidden gem movie.

It is about Frieza's brother who came to earth to kill Son Goku. At the start, of the movie he criticized Frieza for letting that Saiyan go and it would bite him in the ass.
So there is some maturity in this character and I like it. He is more than just another strong opponent. He has the features of an older brother were you can see he has gained life experience and in how he talks to his underlings.

What I like about Cooler's troops is they have individual personality. They aren't controlled by fear like Frieza's soldiers were, parody villains like ... the Ginyu Force nor are they mindless followers awaiting orders. Aside from that Cooler assist his underlings in situation.

Comedy is great in this movie. Be it the interaction between the members of Cooler's troop or Goku and Chichi interacting about what is important.

The action speaks for itself. Piccolo is always one of the best characters in the franchise and gets the best fights. The members of Cooler's force use unique techniques and have decent team work. Sauza uses the infamous ki sword we know from Goku Black and Super Vegito before it was cool.
But obviously Goku vs Cooler was the highlight with one of my favorite Super Saiyan transformation sequences.

Sound and animation is pretty good. We see quiet a viarety of places and Cooler's attacks affecting the environment leaves some interesting visuals.

If you haven't seen this movie, you should do yourself a favor and watch it. Forget about it being non-canon or some bullshit. This is one of the things why people love Dragon Ball and you should give yourself that pleasure.

DBZ Movie 5: Revenge of Cooler is about Cooler, Frieza's brother, who's come to the earth to have his revenge against Goku for killing his brother, but more importantly, to restore his family pride. This movie is non-canon, meaning it's anime original, and Cooler doesn't appear in DB manga.

Let's get into the review.

My Positives:
1, DBZ art style and music coat.
2, Good fighting sequences
3, Goku's and Cooler fight is good

My Negatives:
1, Being a brother of the arguably best villain in the DB universe gives quite the anticipation. Cooler doesn't live up to it. He's a more composed and calculated version of Frieza, but in every ... other aspect, he falls below his brother. 48-minute movie cannot possibly create a villain that would rival Frieza. He's there only to give Goku a good fight and to give us some Frieza vibes.
2, Gohan: His purpose in Revenge of Cooler is to act stupid, so Goku gets wounded to prolong this movie length.

In my opinion, Revenge of Cooler has really good fighting scenes (mainly, because the majority of them were used in DBZ), but its story and characters entertainment are mediocre.

I give it 6/10. I don't dislike this Revenge of Cooler, I think it's a mediocre movie. I can recommend you to try this movie at least once, but I cannot tell that you'll like Revenge of Cooler.

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...