‘Kung Fu Panda’ is a story that should be presented sometime or about this timeline since 3D animation reached new boundaries in creativity. The Pixar team had all the good for themselves (releasing ‘Wall-E’ and having ‘Ratatouille’ a year earlier) while the team of DreamWorks was still trying to find their peace in success had been thrown by ‘Shrek’, ‘Madagascar’ and ‘Bee Movie’.
Po in his debut film was brought to life in this film in a spectacular, full of charisma and great adventure with lots of moments that felt unique and nothing like the viewer had experienced before. Now, when you hear of the fourth part of the sequel, I’m sorry to say, you just have the one most people anyways thought it would stand out and actually bears little resemblance to its predecessor.
Kung Fooey Panda
One has to learn to let go of a franchise before it fumes the audience engagement levels. If the creative juices and story arcs have dried up, then there is no reason to exploit it further for gains, even if its money-spinning. This is the regrettable situation with Kung Fu Panda 4, which seeks to provide the closure the narrative needs, much like Cars 3, but doesn’t have the guts to do what it takes. Consequently, it fails to satisfy because of a one-dimensional antagonist and an uninspired plot scheme that seemed to be fished from a board of selling agents rather than genuine writers.
That said, this film is dull. The story uses the classic shock ending so early there is no real drama as to how they get there, but the combat scenes are still amusing. The humor is not laugh out loud funny but at least some of it is not terrible. Po remains ever the engaging and gluttonous Dragon warrior that fans have come to love. Everything appears to be perfect; however, the overall performance is tepid and lacks creativity. It is a pity because there was so much potential.
In the first moments of the movie, Po gives an explanation for the astonishment of many: there’s no much, if any, risk of Tigris, Vyper, Kran, Monkey or Mantis making an appearance in this one. The film’s method of avoiding plausible questions. Although now Po can justifiably fulfill the obligations of the “Dragon Warrior” (which by the end of this film, I am certain, many will regret such self-imposed titles.)Its all about the game.
Somewhere hidden in the Kung Fu Panda 4 promotion, there is a recollection of how this is a start of a new series, which also had destroyed a few major components for this Illumination’s saga for the opening character, who ends up bringing the movie down in the first place.
The Flo Show
And we meet Zhen, a fox and once again we have another sidekick for this movie and this is quite the funny thing. She is a good character however too much emotion is introduced given that she does exhibit the traditional quirks. The issue is at least that her character is so bland nothing can be comically grand about her. She’s a combative thief trying to work alongside Po but movies like these unfortunately don’t offer you a treatment to completely embrace the character. The problem being the overall context being lacking in the more subtle details of past contributors to such franchises.
There are certain aspects that make the picture above are very poor. This particular character is Zhen’s film’s protagonist and it is the same for the film’s antagonist, The Chameleon, as well as the film’s hero. On paper, a shape-shifting antagonist who desires nothing more than to learn kung-fu and defeat the Dragon Warrior is brilliant. We are introduced to The Chameleon in various parts of the film where everyone seems to respect her and she seems to be the queen of the underworld. When the moment arrives when action is required, she is nothing more than a disposable villain who never has any stakes in a fight against Po or Zhen. It’s like an episode from The Simpsons where Milhouse states that due to Poochie, Itchy and Scratchy did not get a chance to reach the fireworks factory. Greatness is always around the corner but instead of great, nothing happens.
Even Po, who is the soul of the entire franchise while feeling over self-righteous and his exploration into the new lands doesn’t feel appealing. Don’t feel like they have been to another far fetched place. They have only been to the next city. Kung Fu Panda 4 has many significant weaknesses however the key issue lies with the fact that it is clear that there is a vision when developing the film, yet they cannot execute it efficiently.
The Humor Crew
The absence of the Furious Five would have been excused if the humor reached the heights attained in earlier films but this was not to be. Poor development and characterisation leaves the movie coasting on mild chuckles despite a few running gags (the psychopathic bunnies and the chacaflús). It’s all very slight, very middle of the road – attempts at wit. Most of the jokes revolve around Po’s insatiable appetite or the father panda’s awful impressions of the strong man but by the fifth round, those jokes are tiresome.
Many of the gags are designed to be repeated, in the (often misguided) belief that audiences will enjoy a piece of humour more if they see it several times. The problem is that this scenario is only appropriate where the jokes are actually jokes in the first place. Animat depictions over the human characters have brought laughter in the fifth sequel. Similar source of humor accompanied the action and plot twist in Kung Fu Panda 4 and it never generated excitement. It’s a shame indeed.
This, the film does, go out of its way right until the end of the movie in the attempt to at least pay tribute to the whole franchise from a significant change that is going through in times. But as we have witnessed in the recent movie ‘The Flash’, just placing some cameos here and there will not cut it, not with the audience who appears to be more intelligent than they seem to be.
All in all, Kung Fu Panda 4 just has no spice and is a dull empty skinned dumpling. It’s like you recall what you had last for dinner but somehow it was never prepared well before it was served. At least the wonderful end credits sequence still exists. That’s something, isn’t it?
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