I'm kind of at a loss for this one. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
And as Chester A. Bum might put it SKA-SPOI-LERS!
Back in 2008, when I saw the original Kung Fu Panda movie, I wrote a review saying that it was a really cool experience, much akin to watching all six Star Wars movies in about an hour and a half or so. At the time, any sequels were contingent on the success of the first movie. Succeed it did, fortunately, and we got a very strong sequel, only too worthy of following the original.
In a way, though, that puts me in a tough spot. You see, dear readers, as I sit here with what remains of my drink from the movie and the bottle of Yoo-Hoo I like to get on the way home, I find myself trying to find ways to describe Kung Fu Panda 2: Kaboom of Doom on its own merits instead of comparing it directly to Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
As I said before, I'm in no rush to call that a bad thing, because Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were both very good movies in their own rights and strong sequels to the original Star Wars movie.
As someone who would like to think he's still got something like a chance of doing this sort of thing for money in spite of being a good decade out of school for it, though, I have an obligation to try. So, on to the story, I guess.
Taking place awhile, though I'm at a loss for how long, after the original, Po and the Furious Five find themselves going up against a vengeful peacock named Shen who feels as though he was screwed out of his rightful place as ruler of Guandong City. Shen, it seems, lost his marbles when a seer spoke of a prophecy in which Shen would lose his place to a panda. In the midst of the bird going all Dalek on the city's panda population, Po's mother sends him off to safety by hiding him in a crate of radishes headed for the Valley of Peace, where he would wind up in the care of Mr. Ping the goose, who would eventually raise him to be the Dragon Warrior in the first movie.
Meanwhile, Shen had been plotting his revenge over the years, eventually perfecting the cannon, based on the black powder used in fireworks. After building several hundred cannons, Shen raises an army of wolves and goes back Guandong and takes over from the city's ruling body, apparently made up only of Masters Crocodile and Thundering Rhino.
Po and friends don't find out about any of this until a few days beforehand when Shen's wolves come to the valley and hork all the metal they can get their hands on so they can build the last few cannons they need to take over Guandong, and from there, all of China.
During the aforementioned raid, Po begins to have flashbacks to his childhood and begins wondering what it all means. As in the last movie, resolving this personal identity crisis will be the key to Po's winning the day. In this case, the big life lesson is that we're all greater than the sum of our parts, and that while our pasts are important, we're each in control of who we are and our individual destinies.
So, yeah, as I said at the top of the article, there's a lot of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in this movie, which is an OK thing.
A better thing about this movie, though, is that it still manages to develop the characters a little more from the original. Po has become an effective part of the team, which I liked. Temple Master Shifu, the mentor from the first film, has filled the role a little better than in the previous film. Best yet, we've got a potential romance building between Po and Tigress.
In the negative column, I'm afraid I'm going to have to come back to the Star Wars thing again. One of the comments my review of the original Kung Fu Panda got was about the Star Wars observation, saying that George Lucas drew a lot of inspiration from this style of movie for the original trilogy. While all the parallels here are not exactly a bad thing, the original Star Wars trilogy is slightly better simply because it was aimed at an audience more my age, and I kind of grew up with it. Because these are all the things that made these two movies as good as they were, I'm only going to ding it half a star for it.
I'm going to take off another half star from that part of the review because Kung Fu Panda 2 wound up doing something that did a little damage to Green Hornet and Sucker Punch as well: it was borderline relying on the effects and visuals to make up for the weak parts of the story. Mind you, I was quite pleased with the CG in this one. It was much better than the first, which was very well done for 2008.
And the last deduction I'm going to give this one is a quarter star for two things. First, they've pretty much set up a sequel. Sure, I'd be a little surprised if it didn't come, but part of what made the first one as good as it was, was not knowing for sure if there would be a Kung Fu Panda 2. After this one, I think I'm going to be a little disappointed if there isn't another sequel, because I rather fancy the idea of meeting Po's birth family, as hinted at by having his panda father somehow figure out that he's alive. This isn't really a big deal because yea, I get a feeling there will be a third movie in the series. I just wish they hadn't pretty much said so at the end of this one
The second part of that is the apparent lack of the song Kung Fu Fighting somewhere in the movie. Admittedly, I couldn't stay for all the credits, as this was an earlier-than-usual show for me, and the theater crew needed to get in to clean before the next show, so I might have missed it. In this case, I'm just saying, from observation.
So, the star rating: 3-3/4 out of 5. It's a good, solid sequel, making Kung Fu Panda a good, solid series. Go see it if you can.
Technicals:
Starring:
Jack Black
Angelina Jolie
Jackie Chan
Lucy Liu
Run Time: 91 minutes
Stars: 3-3/4 of 5
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