Producer: Norihiro Hayashida   Director: Tetsurô Kodama  Screenplay: Akira Toriyama   Cast (Japanese version): Masako Nozawa, Toshio Furukawa, Aya Hisakawa, Ryō Horikawa, Mayumi Tanaka, Takeshi Kusao, Yuko Minaguchi, Miyu Irino, Hiroshi Kamiya, Mamoru Miyano, Volcano Ota and Ryota Takeuchi; (English version): Kyle Hebert, Sean Schemmel, Robert McCollum, Chistopher Sabat, Aleks Le, Zeno Robinson, Zach Aguilar and Charles Martinet   Distributor: Crunchyroll

Grade: C+

Viewers will react to this latest installment in the long-running manga and anime franchise in vastly different ways.  If you’re a committed fan, you’ll probably enjoy “Dragon Ball Super: Super-Hero,” even if you have nits to pick with it.  If you’re a newcomer to the property, you’re likely to be bewildered and bored.  The rating above is directed to the initiated, since the rest will hardly be inclined to give the movie a try in the first place; but like the MCU, the Dragon Ball universe has gotten so complicated that, as Desi used to say to Lucy, it’s got some explaining to do.

It attempts to do that up front, offering a helter-skelter run-through of past history, as it were, before settling into a new chapter in the saga.  This one sets stars Goku and Vegeta off to the side, pitting them against one another in a training session that’s periodically cut to throughout, and is finally concluded in a post-credits resolution.  The whole segment is basically a subplot, and in many respects an unnecessary one except to satisfy fan desire to see them.

The main narrative involves the resuscitation of the Red Ribbon crime syndicate headed by the evil Magenta and his aide Carmine.  A good deal of time is devoted to their enlistment of rotund Dr. Hedo, who assists them in creating two powerful androids, Gamma 1 and Gamma 2.  One of these is sent against Piccolo, but he evades destruction and follows the android back to Magenta’s fortress, where he is putting the final touches to an awesome new android, Cell Max.

Piccolo returns from the fortress to enlist Gohan, who he believes has abandoned his heroic destiny for research and is neglecting his daughter Pan, in the approaching fight; the kidnapping of the child is the catalyst that convinces Gohan, and together with Piccolo he will challenge the androids and the Red Ribbon army.  Gamma 1 and Gamma 2, along with Hedo, will change sides and become allies in the battle against Cell Max and Magenta.

That’s what passes for plot here, and it serves as the rationale for an endless series of fights, most between the heroes, both the original ones and their new comrades, against their evil foes but several between Goku and Vegeta in their training sessions.  Characterization is minimal, and repetition is inevitable, though of course the volume and frenzy escalate over the course of the movie.  In the end, though, your ability to engage with the picture positively will depend on your devotion to the franchise, and your willingness to embrace its rock-’em-sock-‘em mentality. 

It must be admitted, though, that the CGI animation by Toei is eye-catching, and the energy level is bolstered by Naoki Satō’s score.  Series creator Akira Toriyama’s script also makes room for some humor, though of a pretty juvenile sort. The Crunchyroll release includes both the original Japanese version with subtitles, and a dubbed English one; the voice work in both is hardly subtle, but that too is par for the course.  Choose according to taste. 

For Dragon Ball devotees, this will be obligatory.  Others are advised to start with earlier installments in the franchise, if this sort of thing appeals to them at all—though fans would doubtlessly warn you off the 2009 live-action adaptation “Dragonball: Evolution.”