Review of Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) by Jenny V — 29 Oct 2012

For some reason humans like stuff that is big and soft. I think that this is a reason that people like to watch a big and soft panda going around doing Kung Fu. This is the second installment in the Kung Fu Panda series from Dream Works Animation. Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Kung Fu Panda 2 was definitely a hit. This film had an unusually deep plot and even better villains then the original. Finally after a bunch of sequels havenâ(TM)t been up to par with the original, this sequel was a completely different movie and was just as good as its predecessor.

The movie begins with a story about how China was ruled by the peacocks and how their son would eventually end up the ruler of China, but a fortune teller had a different outcome and Shen (Gary Oldman) was exiled from his country. Saying, âChina will be mine!â? and declaring that he will be the end to Kung Fu, this sets a big cdhallenge for Po (Jack Black). We join the story a few years later and find Po with the Furious Five â" Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross) â" training for their next big adventure. And that adventure has come quite quick, with the Dragon Warrior (Po) and the Furious Five having to stop Lord Shen from trying to take over China. While all this is going down Po is struggling to find out who he is and where he came from.

In the first Kung Fu Panda, Po was an extremely rambunctious character that was obsessed with the Furious Five and eating. In this chapter he was a very humbled and more refined character. For an animation it is unusual to see a very deep plot and especially from Dream Works. But they were able to pull it off flawlessly. I think this was due to the fact that Po wasnâ(TM)t his original self. He is humbled by his identity crisis and trying to figure out where he is from and why he is the only panda. Po realizes that he his adopted and his search for his father really brings a different side to Po that we havenâ(TM)t seen. This might also be due to the fact that he has been training as the dragon warrior.

From an animation standpoint, this movie was a very cool one. It has a lot of action and fighting scenes that were done beautifully. If you can make a fat panda look like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon then you definitely have done something right. Moving into a new era of stereoscopic animation, the 3D and the colors were just brilliant (although paying for 3D isnâ(TM)t worth it). This time around the animators used the Furious Five and Po to do many combination attacks which was very interesting to watch. Even though you arenâ(TM)t able to see everything that is going on due to the editing, the end result is really well done and makes you feel like a spectator to a real fight (even if the fights are unrealistic).

Finally this movie was a very good part two to the original, the characters are move developed and there is a lot going on. This added much to the development of the characters directly following the first movie. So my recommendation for this movie you might ask, I would say if you enjoyed the first on then I think you would really like this movie and really even if you havenâ(TM)t seen the first one I believe that you would like this movie as well. So all Iâ(TM)m left thinking is Skadoosh!