Kung Fu Pandering!

Rating: 6/10 (11 November 2008)

As a kid, I always loved animals in human roles, and 'Kung Fu Panda' cleverly utilises animal fighting styles into characters- with the exception of Po (the main Panda character). This films starts off quite funny, and goes through the motions of acceptance and all that, but it's narrative is fairly weak, and after awhile, Jack Black's Po got quite annoying. I did like the back-story to Tai Lung (voiced by Ian McShane), but he wasn't as ruthless as he could have been.
With the exception of Michael Clarke Duncan, Seth Rogan, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan and Lucy Lui, I seriously didn't recognise the other voice artists until the end credits. I knew I heard the voices before, but I just couldn't pick them, and I'm surprised I didn't notice that it was Dustin Hoffman in the mentor role, and Ian McShane as the villain. They both did a great job! The humour was pretty good, particularly with Po's fan-boy characteristics in the beginning, but his character became more and more annoying as the film progressed, and the whole Dragon Scroll things was a very typical waste of energy that reflects the overall message of the movie. Believe in yourself etc. 'Kung Fu Panda' is not great, but it is not terrible either, and I've had more fun watching other animated films. Bearable at best and panders to childrenumm yeah, bad puns intended! *** out of *****!