Cute but trite

Rating: 5/10 (11 June 2008)

Kung Fu Panda is a cool-looking movie, and fun, and unlike many summer movies, it did not annoy or offend me. So yeah, I'm sort of glad that I saw it.
That said, though, I would've appreciated a more original script. As it stands, Kung Fu Panda feels like it was cobbled together from the leftovers of 100 other movies involving chosen warriors, sagely mentors, crises of confidence and spooky supervillains. I recognized scenes lifted from Star Wars, from various karate movies, and even from the long-forgotten (or so I thought) Judge Dredd! This is not exactly a trailblazing film, in other words.
Also, I actually disapproved of Kung Fu Panda's underlying message about always "following your dream," even if it's (a) utterly implausible and (b) involves telling your family to buzz off. You see, at the start of the film, the panda is working in his dad's noodle shop, but he dreams of being a karate master - even though he's lazy and fat. So, in order to become the hero, the panda has to reject his father's life's work and, through no particular effort of his own, become a super-powerful warrior.
Call me Mr. Cranky-Pants, but I think that message might actually be bad for little kids. The film, in short, tells kids to be dissatisfied with ordinary jobs - like working in a restaurant - and encourages them to pursue ridiculous unlikely jobs, like unstoppable warrior hero. It annoys me, really, that hundreds of Hollywood movies are all about vaulting over ordinary people (like the panda's dad) in order to make it big. Foreign films, you'll notice, don't always have this "become a rock star" message, and are actually about realistic things and realistic people. But not American movies, noooo...American movies tell you that you can become a karate master without exercise and leave your boring dad and his boring everyday job in the dust.
Right, enough ranting. I suppose I've been spoiled by watching too many foreign movies lately, and I can no longer get behind cute formula fiction like Kung Fu Panda. That doesn't mean I hated this movie. The animation was nice, the action was cool, the celebrity voices impressed. I just wish that a single original idea - or even a shred of realism - had been displayed as well.