Kung Fu Panda Review
by dnb@dca.net (dnb AT dca DOT net)June 8th, 2008
KUNG FU PANDA
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2008 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
Confucius say, "Expect the worst and even the most jaded may find true enlightenment."
Dreamworks' latest animated feature "Kung Fu Panda" features Jack Black (his voice and a sizable chunk of his larger-than-life personality) as a fat and lazy Giant Panda named Po who is accidentally chosen to be the next Dragon Warrior when the former title holder, a snow leopard gone bad (Ian McShane), threatens China's majestic Valley of Peace.
Black's panda is giant all right; that's some serious poundage he's carting around.
Giant disappointment, however, begins to describe the reaction of the furious five ninja warriors in training--Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey ( Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Crane (David Cross)--all of whom have been mentored by Kung Fu Master Shifu (some kind of a rodent thing nicely voiced by Dustin Hoffman) and all of whom were hoping to be selected for the coveted DW position, along with the possession of its mysterious dragon scroll.
But it's Shifu who's the most disappointed of the bunch, since it's up to him to train this overweight, under-motivated noodle loving black and white bear. (OK, so everyone knows that pandas aren't really bears but members of the raccoon family... but wait! Quite recently, it seems, pandas were officially reclassified as members of a bear subfamily, Ailuropodinae, or as the sole member of a separate family, Ailuropodidae, which diverged from an ancestral bear lineage. So there!)
Anyway, Shifu has his work cut out for him, of course, and Po initially takes a lot of physical abuse at the hands of Shifu's spurned students. But it's not giving too much away to say that Po learns that true strength comes from--ta-da!--within. It's an oft-parlayed message, especially in kids' movies, but it works surprisingly well here. Black is, of course, absolutely perfectly cast as Po to the point that were he an animal I'm not sure what other animal he *could* be.
The film, directed by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson, is creative, colorful and strikingly-animated with the (mostly) recognizable vocal talent doing a fine job of getting inside their characters skins, or fur, or feathers, or whatever it is a praying mantis has (exoskeleton?). Black himself ensures that the humor quotient is kept upfront and central but writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger should also be credited for delivering a screenplay that favors wit and irreverence over flatulence... and that's pretty impressive for a storyline featuring a slobbish main character that favors eating over everything else.
"Kung Fu Panda," therefore, is a nice surprise, a delightful mix of eye-popping--and bone crunching--animation, exciting martial arts action (Tai Lung's fiery escape from prison is especially noteworthy, as is the villain's final and inevitable face-off with Po), and large--*very* large--dollops of humor. Pretend to be taking the little ones to see it and, like that wise old Chinese philosopher says, you'll likely enjoy it as much as they do.
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David N. Butterworth, Film Editor
www.offoffoff.com/film | dnb@dca.net
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
