BurntFilm

I’m not usually the kid of person to gush all fondly over an animated feature. The last one that I loved was when I watched The Lion King at the movies where i cried like a little girl when the Dad died. Thank God the lights are kept off in the movies.

Apart from that I have never had much of an emotional reaction to a cartoon (well, Grave of the Fireflies in an exception) and especially not to anything that is CGI. You only have to look at my review of The Incredible Hulk from last week to know what i think about that. So it was to my surprise that when I sat down to watch this unassuming kids/kung fu movie with Jack Black that i would bond so closely with the characters.

They trick to this film is that they have made a simple story, well. There are no surprises here. It’s a fat Panda who discovers what it takes to follow his dream and become a kung fu warrior. I’m not really given much away when he discovers that the secret to absolute power is believing in himself.

The CGI itself looks amazing and incredibly detailed. From the Manga cartoon styled dream that our hero has at the start of the dream to the richly detailed environments, everything is here to serve the story. Fight scenes, usually hard to make interesting in CGI as there doesn’t feel like there are much stakes, are kept inspired and creative by using many kung fu styled shots and edits.

There are many faults in this movie that a critic could easily exploit. The movie is another of a trend of having an overweight hero in a kid’s movie can worry many, especially when many of the characters in the movie are paper thin, obviously there just for the Happy Meal figurines that will invariably pop up around a film such as this.

These are genuine concerns to have. It’s interesting to see how our heroes have evolved in children’s culture. From the strong, proud lion of Simba to the fat, stupid monster of Shrek and now the overweight Panda, Po whose major reason for training is the promise of food. We need to decide whether this is either a push to make our heroes more of a common man or simply a push to make obesity acceptable.

Fat or not, Po was a pleasure to watch. It’s nice to watch a story told well. Be sure to stay after the credits.

****

This post is tagged film, kung fu panda, Review