Awesomely Skadooshilicious

Rating: 9/10 (9 June 2008)

Kung Fu Panda is both a send-up of and a tribute to the kung-fu genre, and it works. Innocent eyes will goggle at the beautifully rendered characters, break-neck action, and gentle humor; more experienced viewers will laugh at loud at all of the kung fu movie clichés... a hopeless loser that goes from zero to hero in about one day of intense training... a promising but evil student who turns against his master... the wise, ancient master... the prophesy... the various forms of animal-style kung-fu practiced by actual creatures of the correct type... it's all there, without any wires, and without the awful dialogue you would expect from a chop-sockey film. Jack Black entertains, and shares some excellent dialogue with Master Sifu, voiced by Dustin Hoffman. The Furious Five, a group of powerful Kung Fu warriors, is voiced by various big-name actors, but somehow, they rarely seemed to get enough voice-time to justify those big salaries - particularly Jackie Chan (Monkey), who had about three lines of dialogue. Presumably they based Monkey's movements on some of Jackie's more inspired moves from the past. This is where the film lost a point. An honorable mention should be given to James Hong, who voices Po's (Jack Black, the Panda) father's voice - apparently, PO is the son of a goose who owns a noodle shop. Ian McShane also deserves mention as Tai Lung, the immensely powerful evil Snow Leopard kung-fu master who must escape from prison and return to the valley in order to fulfill PO's destiny. See this movie. It brought awesomeness back to a genre that has seen a lot of crap in the past 5 years (anything with Star Wars in the title, anything starring Jackie Chan, anything directed by the Wachowski Brothers...), and it's even clean enough to bring your kids to. And to any naysayers, I say to you... SKA-DOOSH.