A fun, beautiful, if a little formulaic animated movie, that the kids will sure enjoy.
I confess that I've never seen any of the previous Kung Fu panda movies from start to finish, so I went into this a little blind. So it was a relief to come out of the theatre with a smile on my face, as well as those of my young siblings.
The story sees Po (Jack Black) reunited with his long lost father Li (Bryan Cranston), who takes him to a secret panda village where Po originally came from. Along the way a supernatural villain called Kai is defeating all of the Kung Fu masters in China. So Po and his friends are the only thing that stand in his way.
While the story isn't particularly interesting, or anything close to the complexity of a Pixar feature, it never tries to be anything other than a beat by beat flow of comedy sketch pieces, and action sequences. And believe me, there are plenty of laughs in this movie, I chuckled many times, and there was constant laughter amongst even the adults in my screening. Much of the humour is forced and childish, but it all works nevertheless because the characters are so charming and likeable.
Fans of the previous entries will be delighted to see the return of old characters such as Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Viper and Crane. Although there seems to be less of a group narrative in this movie as Po goes on his own journey.
But the most impressive thing is the animation, which is sublime. The bright colours of the locales and designs ooze off of the screen, and there's times when the animation cuts into a variety of 2D anime scenes, which give it a beautiful far eastern feel, while never feeling out of place.
I can't see why fans of the first two movies wouldn't like this one, my young siblings thought it was the best one they had seen yet. It also helps that the movie is fairly short at 95 minutes, and because it feels like a full on extended action cartoon, not a second feels like it's dragging.
Verdict:3.5/5
