Kung Fu Panda After seeing Kung Fu Panda you might jump to the conclusion that every film should have two directors (and two fairly new directors at that). Kung Fu Panda is almost the perfect family movie. Not only is the movie funny, but the action sequences are exciting. The movie is short and sweet. There is enough here to hold the interest of young and old alike. This is an excellent movie, well worth seeing, one of the stronger movies I have seen all year, animated or otherwise, though Kung Fu Panda is not particularly deep in anyway.
I have seen Kung Fu Panda twice, once in the IMAX version and once in a regular theater (AMC). I strongly recommend that if the IMAX version is near your vicinity, to cough up the extra dough and see it there. In the IMAX version this is a beautiful film, everything is in sharp focus, and there is always something going on to catch your eye. If you are under the impression that seeing a movie at home and seeing a movie at the theater are the same thing, you are wrong (depends on the theater to some degree though). There is no experience quite like being in a full theater watching a movie with good sound and in sharp focus. By contrast, when I went to see Kung Fu Panda at the local AMC, the film was never in sharp focus, which is a very common problem, and not at all a rare occurrence. It was very annoying. If the movie chains want you to care about the movies, then they need to care about the movies and how they are presented. I once sat through a whole reel where the movie frame bar was in the middle of the screen. They need to teach their projectionist to focus their projectors, and they need to have the sound systems up and running in full surround sound (another very common problem). One thing odd about Kung Fu Panda was that in both theaters, the surround sound seemed to be on, but did not make any kind of impact in the movie. I am not sure if it just wasn't there, or the movie wasn't being projected correctly, if it wasn't used to a huge degree in this particular movie, or if I just missed it. The actual sounds I did hear in Kung Fu Panda were fine though and were well thought out.
The people that designed Kung Fu Panda have done their homework. Kung Fu Panda was made by DreamWorks Animation, the same company that brought you Shrek, Bee Movie, and Madagascar. There are so many things in Kung Fu Panda that are done well that it is hard to know where to start. The first thing that becomes apparent is that they have done a great job of liberating the camera. The camera swoops, flies and spins throughout the movie. This has been done before (especially in some of the 3D movies, some of the sequences in Beowolf were very good), but in Kung Fu Panda, the camera work seems to be done so smoothly and without fanfare. It is all you could wish for. Another thing that stands out, is how well done the character animation was done. This is full frame top-notch animation, and this is CGI animation that can stand up to the best of the old hand drawn animation. They have nothing to apologize for. I remember seeing an old Donald Duck cartoon from the 1950s not long ago, and thinking to myself that CGI has a long way to go as far as character animation. I might have been wrong. They have clearly spent a lot of time getting it right, and they did get it right. The characters are realized beautifully.
The editing is very well done, especially in the fight sequences. There are a lot of techniques used within the film, split screen, slow motion, the use of color to enhance mood, and freeze-frames. More importantly they are all mixed up where no single technique really dominates the movie. It is not enough just to use film editing techniques, they need to be used wisely, and in Kung Fu Panda they are. In many movies I see, sometimes you get the impression no one has even considered camera angles as a way to get a story across.
 The script is very well done. The directors wisely did not get in Jack Black's way when voicing Po (the panda). This is Jack Black's movie all the way, and if you don't like Jack Black, then you might not like this movie. I think it works beautifully. I am a Jack Black fan, from his short appearances on "Mr. Show", and I also loved "Nacho Libre" (which wasn't a lot more than Jack Black having fun in front of the camera, but it worked). The plot line is like a million other kung fu movies, with students and masters, but it never bores us. The directors wisely kept the movie short and strong. The movie never wanders very far from the main plot line (as did Horton Hears a Who at times). I also loved the fact that there was no product placement in the movie. There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, that ruins a movie like being advertised to in the middle of a movie. As was mentioned in the 2 nd season opener of "Boondocks", if I want to watch commercials I can stay home and watch TV. I think movie makers do a great disservice to their audience when they use the attention that we have entrusted to them, to advertise products to us within a movie. For me it is like putting a huge stop sign. It stops a movie to a dead standstill. Do you think all those people smoking on screen got there by accident? On another note the dialogue in Kung Fu Panda fits the movie perfectly, always in character, but sharp. The "message" of the movie comes across as half-baked at best, but the rest of the movie works so well, you don't really notice or care. I would be wary of basing the rest of your life on the message of this movie though (not that wishing on a star works all that well either, but at least it was covered by Dave Brubeck).
The other character voices work fine within the movie's action, though none make a huge impact, though I do think they wasted David Cross in this role. He has about six sentences in the movie, and none sound particularly like what David Cross would say. James Hong, as Mr. Ping (Po's father, a duck, who wants Po to inherit his noodle business) nearly steals the movie out from under everyone else, a great performance, maybe the best part of the movie next to Jack Black, though his appearance is brief.
Another nice thing is that the trailer for Kung Fu Panda does not give away the movie at all. You will not be disappointed. There are still tons of surprises left in the movie to see. I always love it when you go see kid's movies, they will show you kid's movie trailers. Honestly, I don't think "Hotel for Dogs" is going to be high on my hit list when it comes out, at least from looking at the trailer that was showing with Kung Fu Panda (due out in January 2009). It smells like a real stinker. You actually wonder how this would ever get the green light.
Kung Fu Panda is highly recommended, though I would suggest seeing it on the IMAX screen. If only all the movies released were this good and worthy of your almighty movie dollar.
You can write to James Harper at movielover77061@yahoo.com |
