Paws of Fury: La leggenda di Hank

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (2022) was not great, but it was not awful. I do know that this movie is a child friendly remake of Blazing Saddles (1974) just with samurais, which Is weird.

The voice acting was good like Michael Cera and Samuel L. Jackson, and the animation was not that bad because it had some nice backgrounds with some nice visuals.

There are small funny scenes I laughed at, but most of the jokes are for kids to laugh at. There are some unexpected scenes that happen in the movie that I thought was funny at times.

The action scenes are fast moving and there are references to other movies that can be funny but unnecessary. The references will be funny mostly to parents who take their kids to see this movie.

There are mostly jokes that are not funny, the main villain is not in the movie that much, and the evil plan for the villain is stupid. I am not the target audience for this movie, but this is a quick movie for kids and adults to watch that will not hurt anyone.

I sat down to watch the 2022 animated movie "Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank" with my 12 year old son here in 2022, without ever having heard about the movie. So I didn't know what I was in for, aside from it being an animated samurai movie of sorts.

The storyline in "Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank", as written by Ed Stone, Nate Hopper, Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor and Alan Uger, was fairly okay. I mean, I was adequately entertained by the storyline.

The animation and art style in "Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank" was good, and that definitely carried the movie a great long way. As did the impressive voice acting ensemble, with the likes of Michael Cera, Samuel L. Jackson, Ricky Gervais, Mel Brooks, George Takei, Gabriel Iglesias, Djimon Hounsou and even the legendary Michelle Yeoh.

This 2022 animated movie was watchable and enjoyable enough for what it was, but there are far more impressive and enjoyable animated movies out there, recent ones as well. And I doubt that I will ever return to watch "Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank" a second time. And while there were a fair amount of more mature jokes and references, then the overall feel of the animated movie is that aimed for a younger audience.

My rating of directors Chris Bailey, Mark Koetsier and Rob Minkoff's "Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank" lands on a five out of ten stars.

I was surprised to see that the Minions outdrew this movie by over 3-1 average per theater so I went to see for myself. Unfortunately, it's a bit stale and uneven. The jokes are Mel Brook-ish and dated so I'm not sure if the kids get it. A few childish tantrums scenes that could have been better written really didn't add to the movie. Storyline execution aside, the voices were good. Samuel, Ricky and George (when given a chance) Ricky were standouts. Sorry for the low rating but Bob's Burgers and The Minions really raised the bar so if you know going in that this movie is a notch below, you'll be OK as your expectations will be met. It's still a nice time out.

If you're wondering where the title "Paws of Fury" comes from, then you're not a Bruce Lee fan. Arguably Bruce Lee's best movie was 1972's "Fist of Fury." Since then there's been "Blind Fury," "Balls of Fury," and now "Paws of Fury."

In a land where everyone was cats, an evil governor named Ika Chu (Ricky Gervais) wanted to make a huge impression on the Shogun (Mel Brooks) during his visit. To do that he wanted to totally eliminate a small village. He had to make sure that in eliminating the village he was not implicated. His hopes were that by providing the village a terrible samurai (because it was his duty to provide the village with a samurai) he could then use a secret army of samurai to lay waste to the village with little resistance.

For the job of samurai he chose Hank (Michael Cera), a dog who was on his way to being executed because no dogs were allowed in that land.

Hank didn't know the first thing about being a samurai. In fact, he'd come to that land to learn how to be a samurai. Ika Chu saw his plan's success in Hank. He would let him go free to be the samurai of the village.

Hank found a teacher in Jimbo (Samuel L. Jackson), though Jimbo was very reluctant to take on the teacher role. Jimbo would have to train Hank enough in order for him to save the village from the impending attack that Ika Chu would send.

"Paws of Fury" falls into the plot category of about 80% of animations: embracing differences. With Hank being the only dog in the land, everyone hated him and wanted him gone or dead. The unfortunate lesson of this animation is that Hank had to prove himself worthy of being embraced. In other words, if he couldn't help the town, then the town would go on hating him simply because he was a dog.

That's not to say that the movie wasn't good or entertaining. It was funny and had its moments. You could see Mel Brooks' mark on the movie with the characters frequently breaking the fourth wall. For instance, I know that the movie was only 85 minutes because Jimbo mentioned that they only had a total of 85 minutes to get the job done.

Rounding out the stars who lent their voices were George Takei, Gabriel Iglesias, Aasif Mandvi, Djimon Hounsou, and Michelle Yeoh. "Paws of Fury" isn't going to knock your socks off, but it will easily entertain you and your kids.

It's a alright family film, few adult jokes in it as well. It's not the best kids film but worth a watch with the kids. My daughter was laughing throughout. Could of been better though. So wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again.