bluemechaoxide

Disclaimer: Some spoilers may be up ahead.

The tagline said “Prepare for Awesomeness”. And yes, you had to be, because there was a smattering of awesome right there in the moviehouse.

Kung Fu Panda is the latest feature film from DreamWorks Animation. The whole thing is being billed as an homage to actual kung fu films, instead of being another cartoony parody of the genre. It’s a surprising tactic, and for what it’s worth, the content of the movie does have enough of that Chinese martial arts film feel in it to warrant such a billing. After all, the moves you see are based on real kung fu fighting styles. From the fights to the choreography, everything feels authentic and top-notch.

Animation, as you’d expect from a studio like DreamWorks, was silky smooth. It was like watching water flow from one container to another - no wrinkles or out-of-place frames. Especially in a movement-heavy film such as this the quality of the work is really brought to the fore. And lo, it passes the test of the audience with flying colors. Palette-wise the whole thing was vibrant. I especially liked the way Tigress’ and Tai Lung’s eyes, as well as the Hall of Heroes were colored.

The character voices were generally good. Jack Black lends his usual off-beat self to the character of Po. I thought that he didn’t veer too far from what he usually does in his other movies (namely School of Rock and Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny), so in that sense it’s a bit limiting. Still, few can argue that he also lends his tubbiness well to the Panda. It was great to see it translate successfully onto the screen. Angelina Jolie was great as Tigress, the character sounded perfectly confident and sure of herself. A few surprises for me, and maybe for you: Jackie Chan as Monkey, and Lucy Liu as Snake. I didn’t see those coming. However, the best surprise of all was Ian McShane as Tai Lung - his naturally menacing voice was a perfect fit for what I thought were some of the best lines in the movie.

The dialogue gets a bit contrived and cheesy sometimes, but it’s all right: I’ve come to regard these kinds of lines as a necessary evil especially when dealing with a General Patronage audience, because writers have to extend a moral to the story. Having said that, I think that this is my only real complaint about the movie. Otherwise I thought people were getting a lot of bang for their buck.

For an animated film touted as a real kung fu flick, I guess it gets by. But if you see it with the intention of enjoying animation at its finest as well as getting in a lot of laughs, I’m sure you’ll find this as a great movie. I certainly did.