Review of Kung Fu Panda (2008) by Jesus C — 25 Mar 2013

Overall...when I first heard of this movie, I thought it would be fairly dull. I thought it would be your traditionally boring Dreamworks movie with pop culture references, the occasional funny joke, and the dreaded "liar revealed" cliche.

But NO, it had NONE of that! This movie was GREAT, with no pop culture references I could notice, great jokes, some really serious, almost drama-worthy moments, and NO "liar revealed" at all! What's more, the action scenes are really fun to watch and although some people would dislike a good deal of the physically impossible things, this movie knows it's animated and takes advantage of it to the best possible way, and I don't even think I need to go into detail about how breathtaking some of the scenery is.

I'm not a fan of Jack Black, in fact I find most of his performances are rather unfunny (besides School of Rock, that was great), but I think his strong point is the voice acting, and Dustin Hoffman is great as a mentor who is not cliche.

This movie doesn't insult kid's intelligence and can be really powerful at times, as well as not just wishy-washy. But are there any problems with it? Well, it's a bit on the short side and I wish there was just a little more, but they sure do manage to pack in a load of creativity in just an hour and a half.

Regardless of that, if this movie were at least about fifteen minutes longer I'd like it more, but overall it has to be one of Dreamworks' greatest animated films. The only other complaint I have with it is the lack of true intimidation from the villain, not to mention a slight lack of screen-time for him.

That's one of the reasons I wish this movie were longer, so that Tai Lung could be in it more. He had quite the potential and it's played to a good point, but all I can say is that I wish it was just a bit more.

Regardless again, I can praise this movie for taking your traditional, thought-evoking martial arts movie and turning it into something new.