Saw Kung Fu Panda, another kid's movie, like the previous one I saw. This one is funnier and goofier than Over The Moon. It follows a bumbling fat Panda voiced by Jack Black (which by the way what's he up to these days?) who is named as the fabled Dragon Warrior who will protect the village. I don't want to give away anything, but this being a kid's movie, you can probably predict the outcome.
The film is not particularly tightly plotted. It spawned two sequels and a handful of shorts, so I get the sense that lots of fun ideas got left on the writing room whiteboard. Also, the characters are not great. They're mostly one-note, including even the central panda. He's hapless and bumbling, exasperating his kung fu master and embarrassing himself. Eventually he gets better. Nuanced it ain't, but it gets the job done.
The strength of the film is in the action sequences. When the characters are moving so fast they blur, the film is generally in a happy place. There's a great, traditionally animated opening sequence that evokes the bold colors and strong shapes of Genndy Tartakovsky. As with the Samurai Jack films, this one also has a great sense of place and world. The film came out shortly after Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers and so on and is clearly inspired by their extravagant visuals.
So, ultimately the film is kind of a loose collection of funny fight scenes. Like Jackie Chan's work (who is also in this film,) it's a delivery mechanism for physical comedy and slapstick battles. In typical early 2000s style, things are not let to be nice and characters are constantly quipping and being low-key obnoxious (thanks, Shrek) but when they shut up and have a nice battle, things fall into place and the film is nice after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment