Kung Fu Panda is the story of Po, (voice Jack Black), a sweet, but clumsy Panda who has dreams of fighting with the legendary Furious Five and protecting the city against all threats. The only problem is that Po has no real life experience of kung fu, and his real job is serving noodles at his dad's noodles shop.
This movie is funny for your kids, and just a good time. Doesn't really teach them anything, but nonetheless, you should take your kids to see it for a good fun time.
Kung Fu Panda was a nice summer outing with the kids for a rainy day. Nobody is going to be replacing Shrek or Finding Nemo in their list of best family movies with KFP, but with a great cast and a plot that in animated movie world is nearly plausible.
Jack Black voices the title character, and given that Black is basically a cartoon character himself, he is enjoyable throughout the film. He plays a clumsy oaf of a Panda who is working in a noodle shop which is his family's business. However, he secretly wants to be a Kung Fu hero, and idolizes the Furious Five, who are Kung Fu legends that are all vying to be the "chosen one" which is according to an ancient script will be the one hero to save the land of its ultimate danger. As you can probably guess by the title, our clumsy Panda is in fact the one will ultimately be chosen.
The cast of the furious five is great including Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan. They are all mentored by Shifu, a character voiced by Dustin Hoffman which is oddly reminiscent of his stumpy pony character in Racing Stripes.
The plot is predictible, Panda stumbles upon his destiny to the chagrin of his father, Furious Five starts out jealous and ultimately accepts the big lug, Panda saves the day from the most fierce villain that we've ever seen, and was ultimately trained to be the Chosen One himself.
All in all, while a little violent, this movie held the attention of my four year old and my 8 year old, and the theater laughed quite a bit at much of the dialogue. Black is just a funny guy, and this gives him a good opportunity to do what he does best. The movie was unspectacular, but quite solid.
