Kung Fu Panda

Mark Osborne & John Stevenson, USA, 2008
3 out of 4 stars

The title, as well as the studio (DreamWorks) was enough to tell me that this was a must-avoid, but an invitation from friends led me to notice a surprisingly-high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so I went ahead and checked it out. The first thing that hit me, not having seen any trailers in advance, was that this film is clearly operating on a entirely different visual level from almost all previous DreamWorks efforts (if you can call them that). Colors are lush, movement is dynamic and kinetic, and backgrounds are beautiful and detailed (character designs are less impressive, perhaps, but still solid). I might even venture the slightly blasphemous opinion that Kung Fu Panda is prettier than some Pixar films!

Of course, when it comes to plot, this falls behind probably all Pixar films, but it's still surprisingly workable, if a bit rambling and, let's say, uncluttered. Although the film has its usual voice actor roster overcrowded with stars (many of them almost unrecognizable due to their marginal personalities and small roles), the film is dominated by Jack Black, who plays Po with minimal crudeness (there were for instance far less fart jokes, perhaps almost none, it's hard to recall, then you would expect for a character primarily known for his size and propensity to eat). Po is very clearly a fanboy, seemingly unsuited for a destiny as a fighter, but nonetheless intimately familiar with their history, and while this is a familiar cartoon plot, it was nonetheless endearingly done by Black. The other interesting character choice is Dustin Hoffman's portrayal of Shifu, Po's reluctant, diminutive master; as far as I can tell, his vocal performance is a pastiche of the English dubbing voices used on kung fu films of the 70s.

If anything, I was tempted to overvalue this picture while watching it, but in the end it is not at all transcendent, just a surprisingly solid example of pop, mainstream filmmaking with a lot of appeal and a minimum of idiocy or nastiness. It should also be added that despite being an American film about China, there is almost nothing offensive in the picture (although I'm sure you could get some mileage out of looking at which characters actually read as "Chinese" and which don't).

Source: Paramount 35mm print
7 Jun, 3:40 PM