Not a disaster, just a bit disappointing.

Rating: 6/10 (25 August 2008)

It is not a disaster, but I thought that "Kung Fu Panda" was a bit disappointing.
"Kung Fu Panda" is big, bright and colourful (and, by the way, looks wonderful in an IMAX DMR print). It does have wonderful animation, some nice comedy sequences and good characters, but "Kung Fu Panda" is not nearly as funny as it could have been, and is severely lacking in character.
I think the worst crime of "Kung Fu Panda" is the waste of a potentially top class voice cast. Half the fun of modern animated movies, especially for adults, is in the spotting of various celebrity voices having fun. "Kung Fu Panda" manages to leech all of the character and idiosyncraticness out of the voices of fine character actors like Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and others, that you may as well have used a cast of unknowns.
A real shame, then, but not a total waste. My Nephew (12 years old) liked it. My Niece (11 years old) thought that it was OK.