Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Jan 7th, 2009 by John Murphy
Buy at Amazon!
Starring Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, and Randall Duk Kim
Reviewed by John Murphy
Kung Fu Panda succeeds as a cartoon, a comedy, and an action film. It is seriously entertaining. Formulaic? Sure, but the formula works. The animation is eye-popping, the gags are good, and the action sequences have energy and imagination.
Jack Black voices Po, a furry and flubby panda who dreams of being a kung fu master. But he’s stuck working in his father’s noodle shop, shlepping a vendor cart around even as the once-in-a-millennia “Dragon Warrior” is being chosen by a wise and ancient turtle, Oogway. Naturally, through a series of unnatural events, the old turtle chooses Po as the legendary Dragon Warrior. In typical Disney fashion, Po must learn how to “believe in himself” as he joins forces with the Furious Five to do battle with Tai Lung (Ian McShane, always great to see/listen to), an evil tiger that wants the title of Dragon Warrior for himself.
Even that brief summary doesn’t do justice to the movie’s predictability, but the charm is in the details. Po is an action-figure collecting fanboy, ripe for the “Hero’s Journey” make-over. He masters kung-fu through a unique reward system: apple dumplings. The inevitable “training montage,” the staple of the warrior-to-be genre, gets a nice tweak with an extremely clever battle of the chopsticks between Po and his master, Shifu. It’s worth the price of admission alone.
Theater folks blessed with the experience of visiting the wonderful American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wisconsin may recognize the wizened voice of Oogway. The voice belongs to Randall Duk Kim, who in several seasons at the APT in 1980’s appeared as Hamlet, Puck, Falstaff, Malvolio, Shylock, King Lear, Romeo, Brutus, Prospero…all the biggies, basically. He’s great in this movie, and there’s a definite thrill in seeing his name next to the likes of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, and Jackie Chan. Odd that he probably collected a bigger check for voicing this slight (if enjoyable) part than for playing all of Shakespeare’s greatest roles combined!
[...] flick, and I like to go to the movies with my fifth grader. (We had a grand old time at Kung Fu Panda.) Second, Coraline’s setting was based on my beloved home town of Ashland, [...]
[...] flick, and I like to go to the movies with my fifth grader. (We had a grand old time at Kung Fu Panda.) Second, Coraline’s setting was based on my beloved home town of Ashland, [...]