A truly good movie that stands out on its own, and is better than the first

Rating: 9/10 (3 June 2011)

OK now remember the first Kung Fu Panda movie? Well next to the first Shrek movie that is arguably my favorite Dreamworks movie. Kung Fu Panda was a good movie even though some people didn't like it. Either way is Kung Fu Panda 2 a good movie? Dreamworks hasn't done so well with sequels, but let me tell you, this is a great sequel and a good movie. First off this movie has terrific animation. Seriously. The graphics, and fine details on everything is very good, and the lighting effects really make this movie stand out. The movie has a great artistic style, even more so than the last movie. So now you know that this movie will not disappoint graphically. One of the things I really liked about this movie is that the main villain is established very early on... like at the beginning credits. This allows you to understand the main villain throughout the entire movie. This makes Lord Shen much better than Tai Lung who was still a good villain, but not as good. Lord Shen is a white peacock which really makes his evil side stick out. He was son of the rulers of China, and after being banished for reasons I won't say, he wants his throne back. This villains as I said before is good. When he fights it is unlike Tai Lung because he is a peacock. Tai Lung fought with muscle, Lord Shen fights with agility, speed, and blades. Also Lord Shen does act like a bird which is cool. When you see him walking around, or observing people, he really does look like a bird which I thought was really neat. The characters in this movie get a bit more face time which was a problem in the last movie. They have more dialogue (especially Tigress) and you get to see them fight a lot. Shifu doesn't have much face time in this movie which I was kind of sad to see, but when you do see him it is always great. Overall I really enjoyed this movie. It has tons of action sequences and they are all good. The choreography was excellent, and the fights scenes were original. If there is one thing that slightly bothered me, it was some of the slapstick humor kind of got old. It sort of distracted when there is a serious action sequence and then slapstick gets thrown in. But that's just me. Like the first movie the soundtrack is very good. Only in one scene did the music seem off, which was a jail breaking scene. Thankfully that track was only a minute long or so. All in all an excellent movie that deserves to be watched. 9.3