Like many other people did, the Burke family trekked to the mall to use somebody else's A/C for the afternoon. The pool just isn't clear enough yet for me to want to take a swim and we hadn't yet turned the office A/C on so we needed to cool off.
Maggie noticed that Kung Fu Panda was playing at the IMAX in Providence, so we hit the road. (They have TCBY in Providence as well, so it's a popular destination.)
My short take on the film is that it's a really fun and amusing summer kid's movie.
It's a familiar story: a boy with a mundane existence dreams of becoming a kung fu master. In this case, the boy is a panda. Po, the panda, is stuck working a noodle stand with his dad. He dreams of the local kung fu school on the mountain. When the old master dreams that a threat is coming, Po becomes entangled in the plan to protect the village. What can an overweight panda possibly do to help?
The style of humor has the power to make or break these films. "All goofy" is rarely effective, and a film that takes itself too seriously leaves the kids confused. Po is the comic relief in a story that takes itself just seriously enough that the humor is effective. Jack Black is great as the voice of Po, and there are a number of other voices you'll recognize.
"Plausibility" is tough to assert n a film like this; it's a cartoon. But the messages in the story is are pretty decent ones, and they lend some credibility to the conclusion of the film.
The animation itself is wonderful. 3D CGI has come a long way, and this film shows off some great cinematography in the fight scenes.
This film was fun enough that I'm looking forward to seeing it again on DVD.
Posted by James at June 9, 2008 9:18 AMI really enjoyed this movie. One thing that I thought was kind of fun is that Po wasn't exactly what comes to my mind when I read "a boy with a mundane existence dreams of becoming a kung fu master." I mean, literally, that was true. But what I loved about Po was that he seemed more to me like a kung fu geek. It would've been really cool if he'd played something like kung fu d&d. It was just a little dimensionality that I thought was neat and made Jack Black's voice seem very appropriate as Po. Also, no blood shed. Love that. But still with tons of slapstick violence that was funny, including some slow-motion face-rearranging punches. The one character I didn't take to was the tigress played by Angelina Jolie. It didn't feel quite right to me and I think I would've preferred a tiger. The first time she spoke it struck me as out of place. Now Eartha Kitt, maybe. ;-)
Posted by: Maggie at June 9, 2008 8:59 PM