Dvd
Kung Fu Panda
Starring Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, Michael Clarke Duncan
Directed by Mark Osborne, John Stevenson
Written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
Animation Studio Dreamworks Animation.
Animated, Comedy, Family, Action | 1hr 22mins | Rated (PG) | Contains Violence | Origin: USA | Official Site »
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The Talk
15 votes / No comments
Flicks review
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3
Guaranteed household hit right here. The kids will leave the cinema kung-fu chopping the air and pleading for a pet panda. Kung Fu Panda is affable, humorous, visually gorgeous and will charm the pants off many… despite relying on a heavily formulaic story.
Asides from the attention to detail and the pretty colour palette – making the most of a high mountain setting and a mystic haze – there are also some surreal moments that are visually inspired. The characters are lovingly brought to life with great, idiosyncratic movements and solid voice work from Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and especially Randall Duk Kim as the tortoise Kung Fu guru. The whole design and it's gentle cadence is striking – quite simple, but quite elegant – making for a pleasant place to get lost in for 90 minutes.
It’s also free of the pop culture references and audience winking that is plaguing children’s animation. Pity though it couldn’t break the shackles of the sleepy, animated film formula story-wise. After a few scenes you can guess what will happen and you’ll guess right. Our hero reaches his greatest challenge and realises the key he needs is found in self-belief, just like Nemo, like Woody, like Flick, like Mr Incredible, like Sully, like Lightening McQueen, etc. It makes me sigh. Be that as it may, recommended.
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The people's reviews
6 reviews
Press Reviews
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Hollywood Reporter
The stroke of genius is, of course, the film's hero -- the big, lovable bear that is the Chinese panda.
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NZ Herald [Francesca Rudkin]
3
Looks great and is good fun but Kung Fu Panda is a few surprises, laughs and engaging characters short of leaving a lasting impression.
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The Christchurch Press [Margaret Agnew]
Rotund actor Jack Black makes a pretty good panda.
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The Dominion Post [Graeme Tuckett]
Happily shorn of all the in-jokes and pop-culture references that wrecked the Shrek franchise, Kung Fu Panda does it the old-fashioned way: with smart, witty dialogue, beautifully designed animation, and bucketloads of visual invention.
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Variety [USA]
A nice looking but heavily formulaic DreamWorks animation entry.
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Village Voice [USA]
Perfectly pleasant, very good-looking, modestly funny, dispiritingly unoriginal variant on the nerd-with-a-dream recipe that's been clobbered to death in animated films for at least a decade now.
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