Kung Fu Panda 3 *** (2016, voices of Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, Kate Hudson) – Movie Review

DreamWorks Animation’s Part 3 is amiable and likeable, very well designed and extremely starry vocally. Meandering around in the middle lane, it is genial and pleasant without being very funny or surprising, or really establishing any particular reason for a third film. This is a story fault, for in truth there isn’t one, just a series of situations moving along pleasantly to a busy enough, though rather baffling conclusion. The spirit world stuff is hard to follow, though presumably they’re not expecting anyone to make the effort. Just go with the panda flow.

(1) The first situation is that Po’s long-lost panda father Li suddenly reappears, giving Po (voice of Jack Black) two fathers.

(2) Li takes Po to a secret panda paradise to meet new panda characters.

(3) The supernatural villain Kai (J K Simmons) reappears, sweeping across China to defeat kung fu masters and eventually take Po down.

(4) Po falls out with his dad, who’s lied to him about kung fu and chi.

(5) Po must find a way to defeat Kai, uniting his village pandas and make it up with dad.

That’s more or less all, and it’s nice and sweet but a bit thin and flimsy for 90 minutes. And the jokes are amusing enough but on the mild and weedy side. The humour is mostly of two kinds, reflected in the posters: Vague, blunt and obscure (‘grab destiny by the rice dumplings’) so you’re left wondering what it means, or weak and lame (‘the weight is over’) so you’re left thinking they should try harder.

There’s a slight problem for the film-makers with the PG certificate, boxing them in, because they have to keep the sequences of martial arts action mild and undercut with humour. This obviously reduces excitement. The same’s true with the humour. Innuendo on ‘dumplings’ is as risqué and as far as they dare go, reducing laughs.

The voices are fine, but nothing that special or particularly characterful, and it’s a shock at the end to find out all the starry names, including Angelina Jolie as Tigress, Dustin Hoffman as Shifu, Jackie Chan as Monkey, Seth Rogen as Mantis, Lucy Liu as Viper, Kate Hudson as the tempting Mei Mei and Bryan Cranston as Li, the dad.

The film’s strength is all in its stylish and attractive visuals, and obviously kids can’t get enough of cute pandas, especially fighting ones.

It’s been the longest wait for a DreamWorks computer-animated sequel, a wait extended when the original release date of December 23 2015 was delayed to avoid competing with Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015).

It follows Kung Fu Panda (2008) and Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011). Dreamworks confirms that three further Kung Fu Panda films are planned. It is the first time that a major American animated feature film has been co-produced with a Chinese company, with a third of the film made in China and the remainder in the US.

Jolie’s children, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, Pax Jolie-Pitt, Knox Jolie-Pitt and Zahara Jolie Pitt, are voice extras in the scene when Po talks to the pandas about a game plan.

It opened on 29 January 2016 in the US and by 4 March 2016 has taken $133,831,000. It opens in the UK on 11 March 2016.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/