Kid-centric movies get advertised to saturation on Nickelodeon. I understand this; easy enough to see why. And I kinda wanted to see Kung Fu Panda anyway. But my 6 year old daughter made sure I knew when it was coming out. So, today, after the weekend (and she's into her summer vacation), we went.
It rocks. Go see it.
The story is pretty standard -- a master must train a less-than-promising (disastrously chosen, even) disciple in order that the student may defeat the great adversary (who escapes his prison by virtue of the prison being inspected to ensure he cannot escape -- a predictable twist, but always a good one, that planning for one future activates the opposite destiny). The chosen one, a completely inept (but eager) panda named Po, is both challenged and assisted by the five advanced students, each of which hoped to be chosen as the Dragon Warrior until fate pushed Po in the way.
No one has confidence in Po, including himself, but he loves the kung fu discipline and prefers being bad at kung fu to being a noodle shop cook at any level of expertise. He won't quit, so train he must, and Master Shifu must in turn train him. Nothing goes well until Shifu realizes he must engage Po's love for the martial art with his other passion in order to drive him to excel.
There are two superb action sequences back-to-back: a training fight over the last lunch dumpling which is simply hilarious, brimming with martial arts cliches, and whiplashing action, immediately followed by a rope bridge battle that would be the showcase highlight were it not for the dumpling duel.
The animation is good, standard quality for 2008 with excellent lighting effects, and the voice acting is great. Plenty of well-known names, with Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu being the very best of the bunch -- there's only a few times when he is identifiably Hoffman.
Four stars out of five.
Snap review from a 6 year old: "I liked it. Really good." She loved the dumpling fight, too.
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