The last great part of this movie is often the most overlooked part of a good family film.
Much like "Finding Nemo" or "Monsters Inc", there's just plenty of pop-culture-free goodness that is terribly entertaining. There isn't even any double entendre or unnecessary crude humour. There are no inside jokes related to the voice actors. There are no Matrix, Spiderman, or other dated references. What helps make this a new classic in my eyes is what it doesn't have. fight sequences rise and fall with each of the music cues, or is that the other way around? Beautiful. Asian drums rumble in the background of intense fights. Snap zooms, slow-motion, and flying cameras are also used with great skill to further the experience. Whether it's flying through the air alongside a leaping character, the painting-like backgrounds, or the wonderful opening sequence (reminiscent of Samurai Jack), they're all beautiful.
Speaking of animation, the cinematography, character design and backgrounds are all done very, very well. Just watch the jailbreak and you'll understand. What elevates them from good to great is that while I expected the unbelievable, gravity-defying stunts that are REQUIRED of a good kung fu movie, there is an amazing amount of 'realism' to the physics in this movie. Let me get this out of the way: this movie has some of the greatest 3D animated fight scenes. All the classic elements of those great kung fu flicks are there, while still keeping it pleasantly G-rated. And while it IS kid friendly, it is not dumbed down to the point where it's childish. While classic kung fu movies are poked fun at, Kung Fu Panda does an excellent job of treating the genre with great respect in a movie geared towards kids. Thankfully, those characters are pretty inconsequential so they're not really missed. Besides Po, Shifu and Oogway, the rest of the cast seemed pretty 'phoned-in'. If I could complain about ANYTHING it may be a few of the voices. (Sidebar: I actually enjoyed "Flushed Away" and "Over The Hedge".) First, the bad. After various 3D animated movies ranging from lacklustre "star" movies ("Madagascar"), boring tripe ("Shark Tale", "Bee Movie"), and over-rated, over-hyped overkill ("Shrek"), Dreamworks can finally be proud of a truly great film.
0 kommentar(er)
