movies by mulligan

Kung Fu Panda

Animation – pretty good. Not ’knock your socks off’ awesome, but definitely a notch or two above ‘good enough’.

Storyline – ok. Standard, bumbling village idiot becomes the village hero plot.

Although the movie is worth the price of admission and I didn’t spend half of it thinking, ‘yawn, get this thing moving’ most of the truly funny stuff was pre-shown in the trailers so not much was a surprise. I did go into it with the misperception KFP was a genuine ‘comedy’ and while somewhat disappointed to learn otherwise, KFP still had the audience laughing and applauding and I left the theater warm and fuzzy.

There are enough scenes of animated stuffed animal craziness to keep some of the younger kiddies occupied but they will need popcorn to fill the handful of gaps where grown-up plot takes over.

Normally during any kind of animated show I spend half the movie trying to identify the various voice talents. Not the case with this one, which for me is awesome, as I got to actually enjoy the movie without my brain getting in the way. I thought the kung fu master as a tortoise was particularly good, and you actually get to see him in action; the Yoda type of action that makes you sit back and think, “SWEEEET!!”. The villain was fuzzy, scary, mean and kicks butt enough to make you root for (and worry about) the hero.

All in all worth seeing again, although I doubt it requires a big screen. KFP will probably do well as a home view DVD down the road.