Kung Fu Panda

My second child movie in a week, I better not let this be a habit.

I’ve always enjoyed Kung Fu movies. So I was excited to see this one. I really liked how they brought all the styles into the associated characters. It had a lot of the same basic story elements that a lot of the old chop soki movies did. There is a definite difference in comedy though, since this is being marketed towards children in the States.

There is a very simple message to this film, believe in yourself. Taking the fat Panda and teaching him how to be a great fighter to stop the guy no one else can, but only by making him believe in himself. Age old message, but this time set to kung fu animals.

The voice acting was pretty good. Nothing spectacular, but Jack Black is funny, which is to be expected. What I was a little surprised at was how they didn’t try to market all these actors they have doing voices, with people like Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, and even Jackie Chan. But they just focused on Jack Black. My only problem with having Black do the voice is at times it felt like the voice and character on screen didn’t really fit together. Part of it could be that Black has such a distinct voice and face, that when you hear him talk, you can only imagine his face, and not this CGI panda. But this wasn’t too bad for most of the movie, just a scene here and there.

The animation was spectacular. 3-D animation has come so far in the past few years, and between this and Wall-E I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.