Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
6/12/08
As
moviegoers, we have a love/hate relationship with trailers. They
tease, they spoil, they lie through their teeth in the attempt to get us
to buy a ticket. Once in a while, you'll see a trailer, like the
one for August Rush, that perfectly encapsulates
the emotional experience of the movie you'll see without giving away every
last one of its' beats. On the other hand, the animated comedy Kung
Fu Panda surprised me by being so free of surprises: it's nothing
short of a 90-minute remake of its' own trailer. Anchored by some
appealing vocal performances and lovely, colorful animation, Panda
is never less than an agreeable movie experience. It's just also
never much more, a mild, predictable fable best enjoyed by kids and animation
die-hards.
In
the Valley of Peace, a panda named Po (voice of Jack Black) works at a
drudgerous job in the noodle restaurant of his father, a goose named Mr.
Ping (James Hong). But Po dreams of martial arts glory like that
known by the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie
Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogan), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross).
Those warriors are students of Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), himself a
student of Master Oogway. There is a prophecy that in a time of great
danger, Oogway will select The Dragon Warrior, who will receive a special
scroll with the key to ultimate power. Years ago, Shifu believed
his student Tai Lung (Ian McShane) was destined to be the Dragon Warrior,
but he turned evil and was exiled to a remote prison. But now he's
escaped, and the Dragon Warrior must finally be chosen. Again flush
with ego, Shifu believes it must be one of his Five students, but Oogway
makes a surprising choice: the big, fat Panda who makes a spectacle
of himself at the ceremony to announce the selection. The Five are
disappointed, but Shifu's even more resentful of his new pupil, and resolves
to push Po until he quits. But the Kung Fu Panda will not quit, and
soon, he is the only thing that stands between the Valley of Peace and
Tai Lung's destructive wrath.
And
that's about it. If you've seen the trailer, you know that Po is
out of shape, that Shifu eventually uses food to motivate him to learn
the way of Kung Fu, and... well, that's about it. Kung Fu Panda
strolls along aimiably, getting a few laughs but mostly just being cute,
hitting all the obligatory notes and then shuffling off on its' way.
It's a movie designed to not annoy rather than to overtly entertain, and
it succeeds. It's certainly easy to look out, filled with bright
colors and wonderful CGI animals (the texture of their fur never ceases
to amaze me) whose faces are so expressive I thought of them as neither
CGI nor animated but simply as talking animals.
There
are also some great vocal performances. I've yet to see the movie
that wasn't improved for Dustin Hoffman's presence, and he walks a perfect
thin line where Shifu has enough real bitterness to feel like a convincing
and emotionally accessible character but also enough wackiness to remember
he's in a kid's movie. McShane's booming tones are a superb match
for a Critter of Destruction, and as Po, Black finds notes of edge-free
innocence I didn't know he had. Hong is always a hoot, and it's almost
hilarious that his tiny goose actually does seem to be Po's biological
father, if only the movie had spun it a little harder. Michael Clarke
Duncan has one of the best, most distinctive voices going, and lends it
well to Commander Vachir, the Rhinoceros who acts as Tai Lung's warden.
But the cast is also filled with name actors whose presence adds nothing
to the proceedings. Tigress is such a non-character that Jolie can't
find an angle to make her fun, and Chan has at most three lines as Monkey.
The
only thing the Furious Five contribute to the movie is its' one quality
action sequence, where they try to head off Tai Lung on a rope bridge.
Otherwise, the action is neither innovative nor exciting, and the movie's
heart isn't really in it. I was pretty excited about the notion of
the animal-inspired schools of Kung Fu represented by their respective
critter counterparts and the challenge of trying to come up with moves
appropriate to “Panda Kung Fu”, but that's more work than we can expect
from a movie whose greatest moment of Eastern thought ends with “Today
is a gift. That's why they call it The Present.”
I've
said a few times on the site that there are movies meant mostly to be seen
by the fans of their genres, and if you're a fan of the modern celebrity-driven
animated comedy, you'll probably find enough to like in Kung Fu Panda
to
get you through. Even if you're not, you'll be hard-pressed to rattle
off objections to it other than that it just kinda lays there. Kids
should love it, setting up that inevitable adult re-viewing that makes
them say “You know, I remembered that being better...” |
