Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Tree of Might

Dragon Ball Z: Tree of Might [1990]

Welcome to my review of another Dragon Ball Z movie, this time the third entry in the many non-serial, technically non-canonical movies, content to just introduce a doomsday villain, have our heroes fight him, and then wrap it up like a filler arc. Dragon Ball Z: Tree of Might (or, in its original Japanese title, "Super Showdown for the Whole World") follows this formula to a tee. And to be fair, Turles is a pretty neat villain with a pretty neat backstory and just enough personality to set him apart from the likes of Bojack or Slug. 

The concept of the movie is sound, and it's essentially the same plotline as the fourth movie -- Lord Slug, released a year after this one. A group of aliens show up with a plan to completely fuck up the world's climate, only while Lord Slug tries to terraform it with some space mist, Turles uses the titular Tree of Might, planting seeds to essentially function as a reverse Spirit Bomb, draining all the life on Earth to create super-steroid fruits. It feels a fair bit more structured than Slug's plan, although the way it pans out is similar -- Turles also has an army of wacky minions for our heroes to fight, and this time around the full complement of Z-warriors actually show up instead of it being just Krillin and Piccolo. 

And while Turles looks exactly like Goku but with a tan, pulling a Goku Black several years before he appeared, I actually did like that they didn't make a big fuss out of it, because apparently all low-level Saiyans look similar? Eh. Turles himself is very intent on being a more evil Piccolo, wanting to kidnap Gohan and make him one of his strongest minions, and while he does crib Vegeta's style of talking about Saiyan stuff, it's different enough from everyone's favourite Prince to actually make Turles enjoyable for a one-shot villain. 

But the execution is... pretty slipshod, even more so than Lord Slug was. And it's a real shame, because there are some genuinely good moments here. The moments of the Tree of Might causing decay and destruction as its roots and vines topple buildings are really great, but the movie repeats this like three or four times throughout its 60-minute runtime without really doing much after the first reveal. The arrival of the entire contingent of the Z-warriors ends up amounting to nothing, because other than a brief call-out of attacks, everyone not named Goku or Gohan gets their asses kicked off-screen by the entire miniboss squad. And while I do praise the movie for not following the same formula of "gross one/handsome one/brutish one" that most other DBZ movies do... Turles' Crusher Corps (Amond, Cacao, Daiz, Rasin and Lakasei) are all absolutely devoid of personality or charm both in design and power set, and they're all unceremoniously whacked aside by Goku in one shot.

There is also the fact that half of the movie's runtime is devoted to that goddamned purple dragon, who makes his debut here. I've bemoaned Icarus while reviewing Cooler's Revenge and Lord Slug, but here Icarus is actually shoehorned into the goddamn plot for no real reason. What the fuck is a big fat European dragon doing in a mostly oriental setting, anyway? Seeing Icarus flap around while the gigantic Shenron looms over him is just so weird. There's a whole sequence devoted to the gang going camping and stopping a forest fire, then using the dragon balls to restore it to life, just to befriend Icarus, then more scenes devoted to Chi-Chi going "NO PETS!" to Icarus reverting Gohan into a bland "boy-with-pet" personality. I'm also definitely not a big fan of how Turles manages to cause Gohan's tail to sprout back out (a big WHAT in my books), make a moon, force Gohan to become a giant monkey, only for Gohan to be calmed down not by his father, but by Icarus.

Add that to an poorly handled ending with the fruits of the Tree of Might giving Goku the power for the Spirit Bomb that ends up feeling sappy as opposed to touching, and well, Tree of Might sadly isn't just that good of a movie thanks to having just so many problems with it.