KUNG FU PANDA (Mark Osbourne and John Stevenson, 2008) ***

Rating: 7/10 (6 July 2008)

After an innovative and likable start, the SHREK series quickly deteriorated and, being a similar product, I didn’t quite know how I was going to react to this one – which is basically TMNT via SHREK and STAR WARS (with Oogway standing in for Yoda, Shifu as a cross between Obi-Wan-Kenobi and Master Splinter, Tai Lung replacing Darth Vader and Po, obviously, as an amalgam of both Luke Skywalker and Shrek!).
Surprisingly, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit because, not only was the animation technique on display thoroughly “awesome” (though the very best sequence may well be the classically animated opening dream sequence!), but the characterizations themselves (particularly Jack Black’s titular bout) were vividly realized. Apart from Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman, I didn’t recognize the other voice artists and, realizing that the characters of Tai Lung, Monkey and Viper had actually been voiced by Ian McShane, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu respectively only brought to mind another pet peeve of mine which has become increasingly common in contemporary movies: the credits are bundled together at the very end while the opening is reserved to an endless succession of production company logos (although, in this case, the transformed animated Asian-inflected Dreamworks logo was an inspired and amusing touch)!
The moral of the story – that one should not refrain from chasing his life’s dreams in spite of the everyday adversities and that within everyone is the will to achieve this goal – sets the scene for an epic framework of good-vs.-evil in ancient Asia. Thankfully, in spite of the expected spectacle of various action sequences, we were spared anachronistic, in-jokey references to popular movies like THE MATRIX (1999), CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) and the KILL BILL saga (2003-4). The only disappointment is the rather thin, by-the-numbers plot line – for all his strength and ferocity, one would have expected Tai Lung to summon an army to make his bid for the Dragon Warrior title and end with a veritable battle (rather than turn up alone and, after defeating the previously unassailable Furious Five with relative ease, confront his former mentor/surrogate father and engage in single combat with Po – which he then, obviously, loses)!