Kung Fu Panda 2

Having seen and enjoyed (if not been bowled over by) the original, I was surprised and delighted by this movie that seems to prove that Dreamworks, while still not quite on a Pixar level (Yet!) could soon catch them up. It handles much more sensitive material than the first movie and tackles some truly dark and heavy subject material, but manages to keep it from becoming a drama by dropping in comedic material in a manner that is never jarring, out of place, or desperate. Lord Shen made for one of the most delightful villains of recent movie history. His push against the future contrasting with Po's struggle with the past was wonderful to watch. Po's talks with his father brought a tear to my eye in more than one moment in the film. This company and production team have firmly established themselves as formidable storytellers and I'm eager to see what's next.

Kung Fu Panda was huge in every sense, $631 million at the worldwide box office and an indelible character amply voiced by Jack Black. This is a voice role that may come to define his career, even though he does not actually appear in a single frame.

Understandably Dreamworks Studios would be failing shareholders not to expand the franchise further and we now have the second film, in what almost certainly will become a trilogy.

Does the film suffer from mid trilogy bloat and irrelevance, well actually no. Everything is subjective but this is the equal or may even surpass in some ways, the original film.

Po Ping or Dragon warrior (Black) managed through his daring deeds and hopeless optimism to save "Kung Fu" in the first film, here he has a much harder task. Finding himself, reconciling his own adoption and achieving "inner peace" all the while fighting off the genocidal Lord Shen (Oldman) of Gongman City. Shen is intent on destroying everything and everyone to fill the emptiness, due to a lack of paternal love.

As Po would say, "It's like, quite deep".

As before, Po manages to complete daring feats and heroic acts, not so much out of bravery but by falling skillfully, more often than not led by his ample stomach in search of a quick feed. He does not do this alone of course, we have on hand his usual fighting crew. Tigress (Jolie), Monkey (Chan), Mantis (Rogen), Crane (Cross) & Viper (Liu), heavy hitting star power for a children's animated movie.

We also have Shifu (Hoffman) returning as a "Yoda" like mentor and Mr Ping (Hong) as Po's adopted father, who provides comic relief and some touching scenes in equal measure. The film tidying up the slight oddity of a Panda being the son of a Goose. Michelle Yeo voices the soothsayer that predicts Shen's future, who may or may not be useful to his quest in equal measure. Even Jean Claude Van Damme gets a look in as Master Croc, which always looks good on your filmography.

It goes without saying that the animation and sound are top rate and the story unfolds in a natural way and does not feel conceived merely to extend the franchise. We wanted to know more about the character and here we explore Po's past and why this new threat is so personal and debilitating to him, his own Kryptonite if you will.

What made the previous film really stand out was the hand drawn oriental style animation that interspersed the action, fleshing out stories told by the characters. Here we are again treated to similar sequences which lift the film to another level. For every child friendly chase sequence there is a tender scene which manages to appeal to adults without detracting from the on screen colourful antics.

Will Po manage to vanquish evil again, find balance and reconcile his past, well the deviations from the norm can only be stretched so far but the journey is the thing and there is much to enjoy along the way.

Could well be the the best animated film of the year, Pixar have definite competition in this genre and perhaps mirroring the arc from Toy Story 1 to 2. If so, then the third outing could be special indeed.

Summary

Equalling or even eclipsing the first film this achieves all the studio could have hoped for. Family friendly with a good heart, exquisite animation and a starry but well used voice cast.

Highly Recommended and as the tagline says, "full of awesomeness".

The first word I can say about this movie is, wow! Now once again I know that I enjoy animation movies more than anything but this is one of my top 5 favorites. Kung Fu Panda 2 when I first saw the trailer looked like a typical sequel and kind of a corny ending line, "This could be the end of kung fu..." despite the fact that I liked the first movie. However, the past tense of my sentence pretty much tells where this review is headed, not to mention the stars, but onto the review.

I am only going to choose four of the many characters to talk about for understandable reasons. Po (Jack Black) obviously going to be the star of the movie has excellently transitioned into the role he played. During the first movie, he was socially awkward and never took kung fu seriously, but in this movie it really makes it feel as if he has been shown the ropes a little more and he has matured significantly. For example he is enjoying himself with the Furious Five rather than trying to fit in, and he is also more comfortable with his technique, shown during fighting sequences.

Tigress (Angelina Jolie) I feel was a lot more accepting in this movie, which does not necessarily fit her description of the previous movie, but once again maturity comes back into play. On the other hand though I feel she is a little too accepting though. I don't know if this was deliberate, but she kind of has a relationship with Po unlike any of the other members of the Furious Five have. The boat scene is a perfect example of this because she tries to get Po to open up to her, and for those who have seen the movie, the jail scene where she gets the truth out of Po. Perhaps Dreamworks did this on purpose, but I guess I will just have to wait and find out.

Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), not really a major character in this movie, actually he is more of a minor one. Shifu looks like he has aged a lot more and he is trying to feel his inner peace as if his job is nearing completion. Now I added Shifu in here because he did contribute to the movie, as little of it as he was in. Shifu in KFP was a master to the Furious Five and Po, and only a master, but in KFP2 he is more of a father figure to them. He gives them the direction that he believes is best for them and the valley, and he is no longer intolerant of Po. When Shifu summons Po, Po interrupts Shifu's inner peace by stumbling and making loud noises, but Shifu just shrugs it off and guides Po to his next phase of training.

Now for the final character which made this an excellent movie, Shen (Gary Oldman). Now this character was one of my favorites. In most animation movies you can look at the antagonist and he will be able to fit into society and not be a threat unless he/she wants to be, but from the very beginning he is just a fearful figure regardless of what he is trying to do. Shen shows the true antithesis of good by just being ruthless, unforgiving, and down right murderous. It does not matter what is in his way he will destroy it or get his minions to do it. That is one of the excellent things about this franchise, the villain was truly a villain. Like Tai Lung (Ian MacShane), he was feared by the Valley of Peace just by hearing his name, same with the name Shen, it just struck fear into the hearts of the people.

These four characters really did add to the movie, but this movie also had everything built into it. Not only did it fill the previous holes from the first movie, where is Po from? Who are his parents? How did Mr. Ping get Po? All of these questions are answered in this movie, it is almost as if this is a prequel-sequel. It is as if the first movie was a rope with stray ends and the second movie weaved all the ends together to make it flow perfectly. Normally when I watch a movie I can find a few things that are just ridiculous, but I brush them off, not in this movie though, it was pure excitement, humor, and enjoyment throughout the whole thing. If you are debating going to see this movie, the decision should be to see it, well worth the money and well worth the time.

The question that has been floating around about Kung Fu Panda 2 is if it is Shrek 2 or Toy Story 2 of animated sequels? Well, I'm happy to say it's Toy Story 2 kind of animated sequel - a genuine good movie that takes risks and succeeds rather than rehashing the first movie.

Po isn't as much of a gastro-kung-fu fighter and fanboi from the first movie but has grown in his personality; he's less the Jack Black as a panda and more of a character that stands on it's own. However, Po is now the tragic hero in a Greek style prophecy which foretells of a warrior in black and white who would defeat a certain Lord Shen who has invented a new weapon that could spell the end of kung-fu. As Po learns that he is adopted, he struggles to find out about his past and the strange symbol from his nightmares. The heavy subject matter doesn't weight down the movie and is continually and cleverly able to escape into funny moments without losing gravitas. It successfully weaves the topics of fatherhood, friendship and family into a colorful story that even though we know how it will end, it gets there very very emphatically.

I'm really glad that Kung Fu Panda 2 didn't go the route of being a purely children's movie and didn't go the route of being built on jokes of Po's eating and Po's weight. I suppose the fortune cookie philosophy of master Shifu is slightly missed but purely a small quibble in a good movie. As a final note, maybe it's because of my eyesight with a weaker left eye, I barely noticed the 3D at all. Highly recommended movie.

I'd not seen the first Kung-Fu Panda film since it had come out in the late noughties, and I hadn't seen any of the other ones at all until it my toddler started watching them and I picked up 2 and 3 for her. After watching the first one loads, I managed to move her to the second, for my own variety as much as anything else. The plot sees Po trying to settle into his new role as Dragon Warrior, at the same time as a banished son returns to the city to use a new powerful weapon to seize control of the city and country. It has a slightly darker tone than the first film, because it touches on Po's backstory, and it carries itself with more dramatic sequences than the first film did (where we only got to see the power and anger of Tai Lung in a handful of scenes - mostly the film was about Po's training).

This slightly extra weight adds to the characters and the narrative, and at the same time the scale of the film feels bigger as we move into a city, with the stakes high. This means the action sequences feel like they mean more, and in return the actions is bigger, more polished, and fits well with the gravity-defying excess of the genre that the film is referencing and drawing from. It did this well in the first film too, but here it feels much more satisfying in the scale of it all. At its heart though the film remains funny, entertaining, easy for families, and with good moral messages throughout. As with the first film, the use of Chinese culture swings from mostly feeling well used and cleverly adopted, to being a bit cheap - but mostly it works well.

Animation and production is of a very high standard, and the voice cast is even deeper than in the first film, with people like Oldman, Yeoh, Haysbert, Garber, Van Damme, and McBride joining an already very starry cast. Black doesn't always work for me, but he keeps Po funny but likeable, while Oldman manages to bring gravity to his performance and have good comic timing too.

In my mind, the Kung-Fu Panda films were sort of 'lesser' films because I always saw Pixar's deeper content as being superior to Dreamworks stuff, however this second film lifts from the already good first, and is a very enjoyable and satisfying family film.