Review: Kung Fu Panda

This was a good flick. It’s cute. It’s funny. Great animation (not Pixar great, but the best I’ve seen from Dreamworks). And despite its typical underappreciated-loser-craving-for-greatness-is-thrust-unto-an-arduous-path-to-fulfill-his-destiny story, the fanboy aspect of it is a novel twist to it that at I least I haven’t seen yet. Still, even the quality of the flick doesn’t make up for the marketing for it. I was hating this movie three months ago when Jack Black was telling me to turn off my cell phone before the movie started. But don’t let the ad nauseum advertizing stop you from seeing the film (unless you are boycotting it to send some sort of message to the marketers then more to you, they must be feeling your rebellious sting by now).

So we meet our portly panda protagonist Po (Jack Black) who dreams about being an awesome warrior as opposed to working in his father’s noodle shop. He owns the action figures to the Furious Five, China’s greatest warriors, and has nerdom knowledge of their exploits and the legends of all of the past Kung Fu greats. Well, some evil leopard is prophesized about escaping his imprisonment and the Dragon Warrior must be chosen in order to defeat him. Naturally it is assumed that one of the Furious Five, Monkey, Viper, Mantis, Crane, or Tigress (all based on actual Kung Fu techniques), will be chosen, but Po is chosen much to the chagrin of the Five and Master Shi Fu (Dustin Hoffman) in charge of training him. So the training and hostility begins and a fat panda must overcome the odds and defeat the most feared martial artist in the land.

By now you know the CGI kids film by now and Kung Fu Panda does not deviate from the good time and humour you probably expect. It lacks the inside adult jokes that the Shrek series had, but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny. In fact Jack Black is funnier than he’s been in a long time. Again the story’s trite, but it’s a kid’s film so there not exactly going to try to reinvent the wheel here, even if Pixar and Miyazaki are. Anyway the main moral that the push is: fat people can do stuff, which of course is complete bullshit. But they try to fill little kids heads with dreams of glory and accomplishment so they learn the hard way how pathetic they are. Still, it’s a good movie. Dustin Hoffman does awesome voice-over work as Shi Fu. I mean truly great. I mean I never thought I’d dick ride celebrity voice-over work, but here I am. Black, James Hong (Po’s father), Seth Rogen (Mantis), and David Cross (Crane) also get props for their work. But that being said there wasn’t a whole lot to the other celebrity players, especially Jackie Chan. I mean on paper Jackie Chan as a kung fu monkey is an awesome idea, but when he only gets three lines it defeats the purpose, and it’s not like he’s doing the fighting either. So there’s that.

So good flick and entertaining. Admittedly I am backhanding this movie a little by saying it’s no Pixar, but it does fall short of the caliber film that studio has been making for over a decade, so I’m just being honest.

Rating: 6.5/10

Review: The Incredible Hulk

First off, I’ve never been really interested in the Hulk, even if he is so incredible. I get it. Jekyll/Hyde story but this time Hyde’s not evil, but instead just primal and huge and green. That being said, I was never really anticipating the Hulk on the screen. Also I never saw Ang Lee’s attempt at the green monster so I can’t compare the versions. But all that aside, The Incredible Hulk is not a bad flick. Unfortunately it’s also not a good flick. It does a fine job of straddling mediocrity (like your mom straddling the mailman). The movie never really engages you completely, but then again does not send you away fully disappointed (also like your mom).

So after a brief pretty montage of what created the Hulk and why he’s on the run (science go bad/alter state/man becomes danger) we find Dr. Robert Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) hiding from the US government, trying to control the beast within, and finding a cure to his malady with the help of an online buddy (not the creepy kind). With online buddy’s help he’s close to a cure, but needs to go back home to access the files of the project to perfect a possible antidote, evade the ever tightening noose of the government lead by his girlfriend’s general father and Mr. Orange, and copulate with Steven Tyler’s daughter, all while keeping the Hulk inside him at bay and doing it in under two hours (three hours for the Extended “You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry” Director’s Cut). So the dude’s got a lot on his plate.

Really were the film almost fails is with the performances. Norton really fails to wow with anything he does. I mean you’d think a guy on the run who’s about to blow up at a moment’s notice would show more confliction. Liv Tyler has never been what I would consider “good”. She has just never seems to be able to emote and her portrayal as Dr. Elizabeth Ross is a shining example of that. And William Hurt’s General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross fades into the scenery being only outlined by the fact that he’s a huge dick, but even then you barely notice him. The only leads who give compelling performances are Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky/The Abomination and Tim Blake Nelson as Banner’s online buddy Samuel Sterns/The Leader. And the odd thing is while all the previous characters have intriguing character issues and ambiguity with torn loyalties and inner turmoil and whatnot, these guys are very stock. We have Emil Blonsky, the fading warrior who wants to recapture power, and Samuel Sterns, the offbeat scientist who wants to test the limits of ourselves. Nothing is new about these caricatures. We’ve seen them before. And yet both Roth and Nelson do such a good job selling them they seem fresh and daring. Of course there are other issues like the lazy creations of The Abomination and The Leader and the less than spectacular fight between the two large green monsters. I mean you’ve got two angry powerhouses, they hit big and destroy public property, but that’s about it. Their previous fight between the Hulk and Emil Blonsky injected with super-soldier serum. It pitted a huge hulking (hehe) beast against super agile hunter. It was awesome. So they can do the action right, just not all the time.

So that’s the movie. I don’t recommend it, but I also don’t advise you against it. It’s a fairly perfect blasé film that’s sort of worth your time. But even with that, the idea of an Avenger film with this incarnation of the Hulk is actually exciting and the last shot of the film really shows that the future of this franchise could be great.

Rating: 5/10