I saw KFP3 yesterday, and while I’d place it a small step below the first two, I did think it was a great film. KFP and KFP2 are pretty close in my mind, but if forced to rank them, I'd put the first one above the second. A lot of the things I was worried about coming into KFP3—the villain, the misc. pandas—didn’t bother me, thankfully. By the end of the movie, the villain was working for me and I thought his death was appropriate (taking too much chi). The pandas were hilarious and didn’t take over the film, thankfully. I loved that Po’s story was becoming a teacher like Shifu’s story in the first film (and I’m happy Shifu got more screentime than in KFP2).
I think the only real complaint I had was how the first 30 minutes, the plot/movie never gets to breathe because it’s all moving so fast—particularly the opening with Oogway. We have no idea who Kai is and when he says he’s defeated all the other masters, there’s really no impact because we don’t know them either. Oogway is taken down way too easily, too. As for Po’s real father, I liked him and the character’s design, but it just happens so quickly, it’s hard to really take in before they’ve already arrived at the panda village.
But, wow, this has to be the prettiest 3D film I’ve ever seen (excluding Laika, since those are technically 3D…). And I love how they mixed hand-drawn effects in there, probably even more than in KFP2, although occasionally the 3D characters on top of hand-drawn backgrounds would stand out negatively to me.
All the call-backs to the first film were very obvious. I do hope they continue making more KFP films (or, rather, Dreamworks stays in business to make them), but at least this film makes the three a strong trilogy whatever happens next. I’ll be honest, I'd put this trilogy far ahead of the Toy Story trilogy—TS3 being the only one I felt about as strongly as these films.
Now I need to get these on Blu-Ray whenever they're packaged together at a good price.
Kung Fu Panda
- Disney's Divinity
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Re: kung fu panda reviews
Listening to most often lately:
Abi Carter ~ "Part of Your World" (live)
Taylor Swift ~ "The Alchemy"
Taylor Swift ~ "The Prophecy"
- Disney's Divinity
- Ultimate Collector's Edition
- Posts: 15797
- Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:26 am
- Gender: Male
Re: kung fu panda reviews
KFP4 on the way! Between this and Wish, lots of nice news today.
Listening to most often lately:
Abi Carter ~ "Part of Your World" (live)
Taylor Swift ~ "The Alchemy"
Taylor Swift ~ "The Prophecy"