Kongfu Panda , it’s just a humorous carton movie , like all the other disney cartons , best sound effects, fabulous scene and funny scripts. — Good for killing time.
When dreaming his life away in his father’s noodle shop, Po the fat panda (voiced by Jack Black) imagines himself as the sixth member of the elite martial-arts team the Furious Five. It’s sort of like wishing you were the fifth Beatle, if the Beatles knew kung fu and were animals.
In his mind, and onscreen, the dream is choppy, hastily drawn and features a panda whose “enemies went blind from overexposure to awesomeness.” He finishes his meal, defeats his opponents, and insists there’s “no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.” And then he wakes up and lies to his father, saying he’s dreamt of noodles.
Luckily for us, Po’s dream gets a chance at fruition when a hard-hearted snow leopard, Tai Lung (Ian McShane, from “Deadwood,” without all the hard language) escapes a hefty prison and races to Po’s village to exact revenge.
What’s he avenging? The fact that Master Shifu (a delightfully grumpy Dustin Hoffman) trained Tai Lung for years and then did nothing as head kung fu bossman Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) declared the snow leopard unfit for the title “Dragon Warrior.” (Along with the title comes a scroll, revealing the secret to indomitable power — it’s not just an empty promotion.)
When Tai Lung discovers he can’t have it, he pitches a pretty awesome temper tantrum, ruining the village and getting himself sent to prison for twenty years.
After Oogway’s vision reveals Tai Lung’s return to the Valley of Peace, Master Shifu announces the identity of the Dragon Warrior will be revealed at the Jade Temple. Only the Dragon Warrior can defeat Tai Lung, and everyone expects a member of the Furious Five will be conferred this honor.
But Po, the slovenly kung fu superfan, is named instead.
Training alongside his idols, Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross), Po’s fear of failure is often trumped by his wide-eyed enthusiasm for simply being in a place he’s always dreamt of.
Surprisingly nuanced,Black’s performance rarely jars the nerves with excessive pandering. (There’s a pun in here somewhere, but I can’t find it.) Characters created and fleshed out by writers Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris are sufficiently archetypal for kids’ quick reference, but individual enough to keep the grownups interested.
The film was directed by Mark Osborne (best known for his work with Spongebob and Weird Al) and John Stevenson (most notably a character designer for the old “Muppet Show”). It’s surprising to me to have so many little-known writers and directors create a film that feels so focused.
They say too many cooks spoil the soup, but as Po’s father says, the secret to the perfect noodle soup is the secret ingredient. (Po’s dad is a goose voiced by James Hong, who’s been in everything from 1956’s “Godzilla, King of the Monsters” to well, “Kung Fu Panda.”)
The secret ingredient that bolstered “Kung Fu Panda” may remain a mystery, but the end result is a genuinely funny, wickedly colorful family film with refreshingly smart dialogue.
The only trouble “Kung Fu Panda” really encounters has to do with the confusing messages about body image: At first, Po is too fat to properly do kung fu, and we’re learning about how important it is to control our body mass indexes (while shoveling in the nachos.) Next, Po is trained with food as the reward, blurring the earlier lesson and setting us up for a now relatively ineffective message about how our faults may be our greatest strengths. They don’t come out and say, “Thank goodness Po is fat,” but they might as well have.
But folks aren’t heading to the theater for “Kung Fu Panda” to learn about diet and self-control. If you wanna do that, stay home and rewatch “Supersize Me.” If you’re looking for awesomeness, there actually will be a charge for it, but it also won’t disappoint.
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