Kung Fu Panda

Okay, this review is a bit out of date but what the heck - it's my blog!

Kung Fu Panda - it pretty much does what it says in the title. It's about an unfit, overweight panda (voiced by Jack Black) that has dreams about being a master of kung fu. He "mistakenly" gets picked to be the next Dragon Warrior. Cue humorous scenes involving the training of the large panda. Meanwhile a former pupil and master of kung fu, angry at being refused the Dragon Warrior title in the past, escapes prison and heads back to claim what he believes is rightfully his. This results in a Big Fight (tm)... etc, etc.

It's a fun film and the fight scenes are fantastic - the sort of stuff you can only do in an animation. The escape from the supposedly inescapable prison was absolutely awesome.

The film perhaps wasn't quite as funny as some other animated films and had a lack of true "laugh out loud" moments. But then it did have face-kicking fight scenes instead to make up for this. And it didn't have any musical numbers like other animated films often do (whether this is a good thing or bad thing is purely down to personal taste. In this case, I think it was a good thing). Therefore this loud, cartoony movie probably isn't for the really young kids. It would appeal to fans of Power Rangers and the like.

So - good animation, excellent voice acting, action-packed, funny and touching. Recommended, though I'm a big fan of animated movies so it might score less if you don't care much for cartoons. Grade: Fine.