Kung Fu Panda begins with a bang and ends with a crash but like its hero there's a lot of flab in the middle.
Having just seen the amazing Wall-E I was feeling a little sorry for Dreamwork's Kung Fu Panda as I sat down to watch it.
An A-list cast (Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, and Jackie Chan) and the promise of animated martial arts hi-jinks with talking animals in ancient Japan (though normally that would be just up my street) just wasn't convincing me that anything could push Pixar's masterpiece about a lonely robot out of the special place I have for it in my heart.
But then the opening scene of Kung Fu Panda made me sit up and take note as our hero, fat panda Po (Black), chops and kicks his way through an army of enemies in a brilliant faux-serious manga cartoon style, all the while uttering 'bodacious' and 'awesome' California stoner phrases as he dreams of joining his heroes, martial arts masters the Furious Five.
Then he wakes up and we're back in Cinderalla territory as we learn he's really a clumsy oaf, pitied by the townspeople, and doomed to a life of noodle-slinging in his adopted father's restaurant.
But what's this? The fighters from the Jade Palace (including Tigress (Jolie), Monkey (Chan) and their master Shifu (Hoffman)) are soon to decide who will become the Dragon Warrior and receive ultimate power in order to stop an insane martial arts master snow Leopard (Lovejoy's own Ian Mcshane).
And guess who gets the job?
Okay I know it's a kids' film but I really am getting tired of these cliched 'be who you are' message movies, which is what Kung Fu Panda ends up being as Po overcomes his clumsiness and weight issues to become a lean, mean fighting machine and discover 'there is no magic ingredient' other than being yourself.
Highlights, which drag the film up from being merely average to, at times, exhilarating include a set-piece fight between the Furious Five and the snow leopard villain on an unravelling rope bridge, a vertigo-inducing prison escape sequence and a hilarious training montage where Po learns Kung Fu through the medium of dumplings.
In fact the martial arts action is the best thing in the movie and if you go for an action top-up you won't be dissapointed. Which is good becaue the gags are only so-so and the plot trite.
Unfortunately by the time the final confrontation rolls around we're back to cliche and Po seems to have forgotten Kung Fu again in favour of just being idiotically lucky, which doesn't seem such a great lesson to teach the kids.
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Robert De Niro wrote...
I had the misfortune of watching the film surrounded by street urchins whose parents had dumped them with a tenner stapled to their forehead while they sped off in their 4x4s to run up debts.
Consequently my view of the film was always going to be tainted.
A nothing film that lacks humour and tries to make up for it with all-action 'pow wow' martial arts. The storyline is disappointing and while its sugary moral may be commendable, it is also, as you say, tiresome.
At the same time, of course, kids are being encouraged batter each other into submission which is pretty much what was going on in the cinema.
A truly forgettable family afternoon which cost me £25. Meanwhile, Wall-e is still being talked about by our little ones long after seeing it.
Disney Pixar wins this battle with Dreamworks hands down.
Posted by: Robert De Niro | July 28, 2008 10:35 AM