Viewed once in theaters
Anyone who talks to me for any length of time quickly gathers that I'm a huge fan of animated movies. Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony, it doesn't matter--I usually like them to some degree. So when I see an animated film that I don't like, it's usually pretty darn bad. But before I start thrashing Dreamworks' lackluster Kung Fu Panda 2, understand that the first Panda is one of my favorite Dreamworks movies to date.
Expectations were high for this film. The first Panda was innovative, original, and a surprisingly entertaining treatise in the mind of Jack Black. (Honestly, Dreamworks has one of the absolute worst marketing departments I've ever seen. They could make Pixar movies look lame.) Loaded with cute catchphrases that kiddies were quoting for months, the first film also contained funny jokes that adults could enjoy, too. So obviously moviegoers would be expecting a worthy follow-up.
Unfortunately, the second Panda falls short in every regard except that it looks really cool--the computer animation is impressively colorful and engaging. The kung-fu choreography is interesting (although there are quite a few physics- and biology-defying tricks; for example, a character survives a close-range explosion and subsequent fall from a fifteen-story building into a river). The character of Po is funny--for about five minutes.
Other than that, this film is really a disappointment. It's not all that original, lags and drags in the middle, and ultimately doesn't have much of a message besides, "Appreciate your parents no matter who they are." (Maybe also, "Let go of the past because it just doesn't matter.") Other than Po, the characters really don't learn much over the course of the film. Even Po's personal pilgrimage is rather yawn-inducing. Lord Shen, the "bad guy," really isn't that much of a bad guy. Maybe this is due in part to the fact that he's a white peacock, which is not the most intimidating villain.
My biggest problem, however, is not the boring-ness of this film, but rather the Zen-like mentality that permeates it. Po and Shen are on a voyage to find "inner peace," which quickly takes on a very religious, spiritual attitude. It's almost overpowering at times, and it shapes and guides everything that the characters do. At first, the characters look for it through violence: Shen conducts a bloody (all offscreen brutality) coup to take over his parents' kingdom; Po trusts in his kung-fu ("My fist hungers for justice!"). Later, a conversation comes up between Po and his master, Shifu:
"Inner peace is an important theme throughout many Eastern religions, and
Po's master, Shifu, tells the panda that this peace can "harness the
flow of the universe." In Taoism, peace and harmony are achieved through
balance, represented by the yin-yang symbol. That symbol—half black,
half white—represents the forces at play in our lives: night and day,
male and female, good and evil, etc. Po, being a black-and-white panda
bear, is a walking, fighting allegory of that balance, and we actually
see him turn into a spinning yin-yang symbol near the end of the film." (Plugged In)
This mysticism is pretty overt, but it's got a conflicted message. On the one hand, Po seems to think that inner peace will help him figure out his painful past. On the other, Shen repeatedly rejects the idea of dealing with his past and he is continually told by an oracle that he will fall because of it. Even with the messages of friendship and forgiveness, Kung Fu Panda 2 is not up to par with the other animated films of the past few years. It's a forgettable Road-Runner-esque festival of cartoonish violence that never really gets its point across. With the exception of a few chuckle-inducing scenes, I'd recommend passing on this one and hanging out more with the Pixar films or the more worthy Dreamworks flicks.
1 1/2 out of 6 stars
So that everyone (including myself) may benefit from it, please feel free to leave your own personal opinion of this film.
Plugged In Movie Reviews
The Internet Movie Database
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