Pandemonium!

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2016)

The existential overtones of this philosophical tour de force cannot be set lightly aside. A panda named Po, born into a world in which his only parent is a masterful noodle-making gander* who only wants Po to be a happy noodler as well. Po, however, dreams of a greater fate. He sees for himself a future amongst the five greatest kung-fu artists of his time. This dream, and his own filial insincerity, take him to the temple on dragon-picking day.
Once again the unknown chaos that is life develops an absurd situation out of an absurd situation. Po finds himself the chosen and responsible for the safety of an entire valley. He is then given the choice to stay or go. After meditatively eating peaches from an inexplicable peach- tree** Po is convinced, by his turtle master, to stay.
By staying Po must confront the negative energy of his new peer group, all of whom felt their fate was his fate. Po manages to comedically shrug off the negative energy and disappoint everyone, including himself.
Valley protection becomes urgent when the greatest kung-fu artist still alive escapes from an inescapable prison***. When Po discovers that this s%^t's real he calms his nerves the only way he knows how; by eating. His new meerkat master picks up on this nervous twitch and uses it to train him in a matter of minutes?, hours?, day?...time showing definitively that within every panda in this movie there is a kung-fu artist.
Evil spotted cat then makes his appearance and a second epic battle**** commences. This battle consists of yet another series of rapid-fire choices in which "good" and "evil", "nature" and "nurture", and "scroll" and "mirror" are masterfully articulated through face- punching, clawing, explosions, and other forms of cartoon violence. In the end everything returns to normal except that the turtle is gone, evil spotted cat is in an evil spotted cat shaped hole instead of in rhinoceros prison, the dragon scroll is no longer a secret*****, there is a bridge that is probably important to commerce that is broken, the peach tree no longer has blossoms OR fruits, and a certain amount of time has passed.
In the end we find that meaning, in it's most specific sense, is not illusory, but is meaningless. Sartre would be proud.
*Possibly drake, but we are never provided the paternal phylogeny which only compounds the existential milieu in which Po must thrive or perish.
**This peach tree has ripe peaches AND peach blossoms on it. Oh fate you are a fickle gigolo.
***Foucault may have touched on this in his discussion of the panopticon.
****The first epic battle was no less epic, but has been skipped in this review due to time constraints and a lack of sufficient funding for existential panda research.
*****Unless by secret we mean obscure koan-like point of view.