Cartoon Corner- Kung-Fu Panda

Originally posted at the DL January 2016

My biggest thought here is the movie wants to sound way more profound than it can actually back up.  I suppose that might just be a consequence of being a the sort of kung-fu movie that it is, but yeah.  It wants to be philosophical and inspiring and generally rings hollow.  There's a few things going wrong here I think.



- There's too much cast and not enough bonding between them to sell me on the "be yourself!" theme.  There's like a scene and a half showing the furious five warming up to Po before devolving to a pack of extras.  All the interaction between him and Shifu that's not Shifu fucking with him is in one montage.  The scene with Oogway works... because the character tropes Oogway falls under means that one scene between him and the hero is what the audience should expect.  They wanted to have their star-studded cast but also keep the movie kiddy cartoon paced and something had to give.
-  Po's got obvious self-loathing problems and the other characters picking at them is uncomfortable.  I mean, these dudes are already local heroes, defenders of the peace and all that.  Picking on the fat kid is a bit beneath you isn't it?
- They go back and forth a lot on what the heck Destiny is supposed to be, and wrapping it in pithy sayings just makes it sound like you're trying to pull a fast one on me.
- Similarly, why DOES Po stay?  He gives several different answers and none of them feel true.

But y'know?  That sounds more damning than it is.  The movie puts on airs of being mystical and kung-fuey, when at heart it's another light-hearted but very faithful take on a genre as Dreamworks is wont to do.  And when it's just doing that, being a comedy kung-fu flick staring Jack Black as a panda, it's fine.  Some of the humor at Po's expense does have a bit of punching down to it, but for the most part a lot of it is him being infectiously excited about everything and it's pretty fun to watch.  I adore the opening sequence in particular.  It has juuuuuust enough of a "Fanboy's First Bad Fanfic" styling to get the idea across without being annoying about it, and the art style lacks that same-y feel a lot of Dreamworks of that era had (and indeed like the actual movie has).

I really don't have that much to say about the plot.  The movie puts a lot of comedy in between the scenes of course, but it takes elements from across all sorts of kung-fu movies and plays them pretty straight.  The sincerity of Po makes it work better than it could, but it's still very predictable and stock in a lot of places.
The fight on the bridge is pretty cool though.

Rating- 6/10.  Fluffy popcorn fun.  Just don't let it try to pretend it isn't that.