Monday, July 14, 2008

Kung Fu Panda





Voices of:
Jack Black
Dustin Hoffman

Angelina Jolie
Jacky Chan

Lucy Liu


It's been a while since my last animation feature, good entertainment they may be, but I can't seem to bring myself to watch any of them of late. So it surprised even me when I decided make the effort for Kung Fu Panda.

The story of a mild-mannered Panda mastering Kung Fu against all odds follows a similar formula for Hong Kong Kung Fu flicks, well substitute the Panda for a village weakling. Student learns from master, then faces the baddie who was a former student of the master turned rogue. So it was kinda like watching the run of the mill Kung Fu movie with animals as the starring role.

I enjoyed the story, simple as it may have been. Po (Jack Black) was likeable as the fuzzy Panda, and I liked teamwork and camaraderie shown by the Furious Five, and the friendship extended by most members of the five to Po, even if they disapproved of him. It was amusing to see that no one saw anything amiss about Po's father being a bird rather than a panda. In fact, when Po's father wanted to reveal a secret to Po, I thought it would have been that he was adopted. Instead, he revealed to Po the secret ingredient of noodle soup. The action scenes were also well-choreographed. These were the extent of the positives.

While the animation was elegant, I found the movie to be underwhelming and the plot insufficient to arouse the interest of a more matured audience.
I did expect a lot of laughs, but the movie was a little bit short of it, if only just. With the exception of Jack Black, the rest of the star-studded voice cast were unable to lift the show, and merely served to lend their names to promote the show.

In creating animated block busters, Dreamworks simply do not measure up to the Disney-Pixar tag team, as the team's latest fare, Wall-E will ultimately showcase.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

maybe you can give ratings after your reviews and enable readers to give their reviews after watching the show too.

then u can have an auto-poll to publish the results, say after the movie has ended its run in the cinemas

Anonymous said...

correction:

...and enable readers to give their RATINGS after watching the show too.

Anonymous said...

anonymous : great idea. but auto polling will be abit troublesome.

boone : i havent seen panda but i'm abit worried that wall-e will be a silent movie.

little black dress said...

well.. i think any animation movie will make K excited to see it (remember ratatouille at shan mi's place?). K's a big fan of Jack Black (school of rock and noce libre). not so much for me. give me sex and the city and i'll be salivating over the shoes and dresses they wore for the film.

sugarNspice said...

ya.. good idea to put the rating..

the movie is not as funny as i expected..

hmmm... maybe i went with wrong person...hehehe

sugarNspice said...

aiyoooooooooooo... little black dress.. u mentioned my name wrongly lar...

i like cartoon too... maybe i should throw a "Cartoon Party"..

Boone said...

Anon: Auto-poll? Not a bad idea, but will have to see if I can add a widget on the sidebar for blogspot. Exploring my options now.

As for the ratings, I have thought of that, but since I intended this forum is more for discussion rather than a definitive critique, I initially opted not to. Still, the idea of having the readers to poll is appealing, and I'll seriously consider it. First, I've got to get the polling widget first.

Kevin: Banish your fears; Wall-E will be a talkie, although most of the voice cast are not well-known actors.

Black dress: Then bring K to the cinema before Panda ends its run. Like Wall-E says, pirated movies (DVDs) just isn't the same.

Sugar: Yeah...have a movie night for animated movies only..Toy Story 1 & 2, Shrek 1 & 2. Only the best.

Anonymous said...

hey, one day we should get back old classic cartoons to watch.

Boone said...

Yes...animation movie night; with Toy Story, Shrek, Beauty and the Beast...the best of them.

Or did you mean older classic cartoons, such as Bugs Bunny/Mickey Mouse?

sugarNspice said...

Hmmm... i got beauty and the beast, toy story 1&2, mulan, bee movie, tarzan...

the rest i can borrow from my niece...

Anonymous said...

uhm...actually, what i suggested was RATINGS (u know, like 8 out of 10, etc) by lightsaber and by readers for each movie reviewed.

what you have now is not bad, though not exactly what i meant.

well, just checking to make sure u understood my original meaning.

imho, adding a ratings feature wouldnt really detract from the "discussion" intent of the blog, but would give an added dimension and thus enhance it further

Boone said...

I do understand what you meant. I'm just testing out the poll engine for now, not sure how it will work out.

Anyway, there was a big debate as to which was the better movie, Hulk or Iron Man (isn't it painfully obvious?) so I decided to use it as a test.

I'll go ahead with the ratings, and set up the poll accordingly. Appreciate your input there.