Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Director: Mark Osborne, John Stevenson
Writer: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
Starring: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Ian McShane, Lucy Liu
Language: English
Runtime: 90 Minutes approx.
Age Rating: PG
Genre: Animated, Action, Comedy, Family
Reviewed by Ross Miller
It may be an obvious statement to make but DreamWorks Animation Studios isn’t Pixar. It’s no secret that they just simply and plainly haven’t put out anything that equals the masters of the animation world, and nor do I expect them to do so in the future. However their latest flick Kung Fu Panda is a very welcome animated affair; the best the studio has put out in years and one that should entertain young and old alike. Well, for the most part anyway.
Kung Fu Panda tells the story of Po; a big, greedy, lazy and loveable panda who’s passion in life is for kung fu, which isn’t the most useful of things while working in his father’s noodle shop. Unwillingly and very accidentally he is chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy of becoming the Dragon Warrior. He then gets to carry out his dream by working along side his idols The Furious Five and his new kung fu skills soon get called into action when the threat of a much unwelcome old friend of the village looms after they escape from prison.
While it would be an exaggeration to say that every intended sight gag and joke hits the nail on the head there’s still enough that does work for it to feel satisfying to the viewer. The film fulfills its promise of slapstick humour throughout most of it, with the funniest scenes being when our lovable hero gets beaten up and slammed all over the place by a host of different characters and inanimate objects. It leans towards the more childish of humour more than it doesn’t but who's to going to blame it for that? This is, for the most part, definitely a children’s film and thus a lot of the jokes will have the eyes of the adults rolling. However there’s also a fair few jokes in there for them too, such as when the script makes plays on certain words or phrases that would leave even the brightest of children scratching their heads.
The film has a plethora of kung fu action sequences, as you’d want and expect by the name, which bring to mind the likes of Jet Li, Jackie Chan (who lends his voice as the monkey of the Furious Five), and even such big-budget, blockbuster stuff as The Matrix. The bonus here is that it’s obviously animated and thus there isn’t any need for wires or special effects. From our panda’s very fun training sequences to the thrilling scenes involving our villain, the film always keeps the pace high and it zips along nicely, something helped even more by its brisk under-90 minute runtime. It sits comfortably among the big budget action stuff that’s been released this summer and in some cases even surpasses them.
Aside from the impressively emotive animation by DreamWorks it’s Jack Black as Po who’s the shining star of the film. His voice is very much suited to the world of animation and he brings his usual energetic, outlandish nature to the character. Although for anyone who’s used to Black in any number of other movies it’s always very clear it’s him behind a microphone, it’s still completely works within the context of the film. Would a character, human or otherwise, in this time period really talk using such words as awesome and cool? Probably not but in the end does it really matter? As with all animations it’s all about delving into a world unrealistic and dissimilar to our own. Sometimes it doesn’t work and sometimes it does and Kung Fu Panda is an example of the latter.
I’m always impressed, regardless of whether I like the movie or not, with the cast of actors these animated films seem to get use of the voices of. Whether that’s down to a big paycheque for them or how fun I’ve heard it is to do it I simply don’t know. But whatever the reason the result is great; we get to hear some of the all time and currently great movie star’s voices accompanied with some fun characters to both look at and simply be with for 90 minutes. Here we have, aside from the aforementioned Jack Black and Jackie Chan, the likes of Angelina Jolie as Tigress, Seth Rogen as Mantis (one of the funniest supporting characters), Ian McShane as our villain Tai Lung and Dustin Hoffman as the great leader Shifu. You can tell that these very well known actors are having so much fun doing this and because of this the film feels a lot more fun than it might have otherwise been.
Although certainly the animation from the studio has improved in terms of quality, particularly the backdrops and rendering of the characters, it’s not really an outstanding leap forward in technique. Everything looks the same only better; just think of the Shrek films only up one or two rungs on the ladder.
For any film fan it’s not a good thing to look back at the animation that’s hit our big screens over the last few years and realise it’s not been all that impressive. Most are just about getting asses on seats and no real or thorough creative thought has gone into the actual product. Kung Fu Panda has put a stop to that for the time being as for the most part it’s a joy to watch. Children will get a whole more out of it than the parents out there will but then again isn’t that the whole point?
