The first DBZ movie since Dead Zone to be legitimately pretty good; there's an actual emotional core buried in here somewhere, and the story mixes it up as a kind of mystery plot intesecting with the fights, not dishing out on the brawling until the final thirty-ish minutes. The production design for New Planet Vegeta is really cool, and the twisty narrative is classic Akira Toriyama-style silliness (though it's clear he himself wasn't that involved).
It could have ascended to greatness except for a few factors holding it back-- first off, the main villain plot is a bit weird and could have used some touching up in the writer's room before the final draft; there's also an extended flashback in the middle that spoils everything pretty early on, and it isn't very well-placed because the characters are nowhere near finding out and there isn't enough audience tension created from it. Second, this movie is 70 minutes long, the longest DBZ movie yet, and you can really feel that length as the final battle goes on a bit too long. There isn't QUITE a "Goku gets a genki dama and blows up the bad guy" ending, but it's still too drawn out for its own good.
Still, despite that, this is the best movie in the series so far, with a fairly compelling plot and villains memorable beyond five minutes after the movie ends. For people who aren't big fans of Dragon Ball this might fall flat, but for anyone else, it'll work well.
And for my running continuity check, this one is luckily already voided by the apparently canon Super Broly movie that came out this year, so I don't have to lament that much on how this, like most of its predecessors, doesn't fit anywhere in the timeline. It's the same reason as why Super Android 13 probably doesn't work-- Gohan trying to get into cram school again, and Trunks being there-- but even more egregious this time because Trunks has long hair, implying this takes place in the seven-day gap where Cell has started the Cell Games and the entire world is in a massive panic as the world nears its end. I... really don't think that is what they were shooting for when they made this movie.
