Two weeks after Nicolas Cage went through the motions as an astrophysicist trying to save the world in Knowing, it's apocalypse now all over again in the movie based upon the widely popular Japanese manga series Dragonball, which has spawned graphic novels, video games and an animated TV show over the past 25 years.

This time, our potential saviour is Goku, originally a Japanese teen but recast as a US high-school student in the movie and played by spiky-coiffed Justin Chatwin who, at 26, looks as slight and baby-faced as the smaller half of Ant and Dec. Confusingly, Goku’s Caucasian features bear no resemblance whatsoever to his grandfather (Randall Duk Kim), who is clearly of Asian origin.

Grandpa's function recalls the role of the mentor in the Karate Kidmovies, as a sage who trains Goku in dazzling martial-arts moves and dispenses nuggets of wisdom that may have emanated from fortune cookies. "You must have faith in yourself," he tells Guko, who is bullied at school by thugs who dismiss him as Geeko.

On Guku’s 18th birthday, Grandpa gives him the gift of a magical Dragonball and sends him on a mission to find the other six orbs in the set, which will save the world from the evil, glowering Lord Piccolo (James Marsters). Genre conventions demand that this must be a race against time, so Goku has to complete the task before there is a complete solar eclipse two weeks later.

His quest involves finding guru Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat), which proves difficult at first because he's not in the telephone directory. Roshi gets to intone solemnly as he utters such pronouncements as "the future is always changing", although his supposed gravitas is undermined by a penchant for Hawaiian shirts and the revelation that he's an avid reader of Bikini Quarterly. That reference and a few nudging nods to popular culture would appear to have been foisted on the film as a sop to adults accompanying young children to the movie.

The special effects are not so special and the editing is so frenetic that it dilutes any potential excitement in the action sequences. Scene after scene is suffused with such an overwhelming whiff of déjà vu that the movie has the mouldy air of a greatest hits collection covered by a particularly mediocre tribute band.

Directed by James Wong. Starring Justin Chatwin, Emmy Rossum, Jamie Chung, Chow Yun-Fat, James Marsters, Mai Eriko PG cert, gen release, 89 min★