Directed by Mike Mitchell (Sky High)
Starring Jack Black (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), Awkwafina (Jumanji: The Next Level), Bryan Cranston (Total Recall), James Hong (RIPD), Ian McShane (Hercules), Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Dustin Hoffman (Wag the Dog) and Viola Davis (The Suicide Squad)
Po’s (Black) life as the Dragon Warrior is interrupted when Master Shifu (Hoffman) announces that the next step of Po’s journey is to become spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, passing the mantle of Dragon Warrior on to another. Po drags his heels, and choses to head off on ‘one last Dragon Warrior adventure’ when word reaches him that Tai Lung (McShane) has returned. Zhen (Awkwafina), a thief Po caught trying to steal from the Jade Temple, offers to lead him to the true villain: The Chameleon (Davis).
Po and Zhen bond on their way to Juniper City, while Po’s over-anxious fathers – Ping (Hong) and Li (Cranston) follow them. In the city, Zhen finds them shelter with her former compatriots in the criminal underworld and then leads Po to the Temple where I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that the mysterious sponsor Zhen mentioned, but never named, was the Chameleon. Po escapes and is rescued from a fatal fall by his fathers, but Chameleon gets his Staff of Wisdom and uses its power to draw the spirits of defeated kung fu villains out of the spirit world and steal the kung fu that no-one would teach her.
With the aid of his dads, the repentant Zhen and the opportunistic street theives of Juniper City, led by Han (Quan), Po storms the Temple. He attempts to reason with the Chameleon after she gives a ‘we’re just the same’ speech. When this fails, he must both defeat the combined kung fu of all his former foes, and find his true calling as a spiritual leader.
Kung Fu Panda is one of Dreamworks’ most successful franchises; depending on your metrics, probably a little above Madagascar, but a step or three below the studio’s big, green superstar Shrek. Shrek largely pivoted to the Puss-in-Boots sub-franchise after a decade and How to Train Your Dragon going all-in on TV, so the release of a fourth main series movie sixteen years after the original makes KFP the longest running of the studio’s properties. This movie… kind of feels it.
The film’s pass the torch narrative clearly acknowledges the age of the franchise, with Po’s whole slacker vibe coming off more tragic than relatable. A goofy, good-natured prodigy is one thing, but ultimately a character can only spend so long getting all the plaudits with minimal work while dodging all responsibility before the grumpy old stick in the mud who wants them to knuckle down and help out around the house is definitely the good guy. While that whole passing the torch thing recognises that, the film also doubles down on Po’s slackness, using the Staff of Wisdom to open a noodle restaurant and failing to meditate for the inner peace he explicitly found in the second movie (but don’t worry, because that’s not the only thing from the second movie he’s forgotten.)
In the complete absence of the Furious Five – one cannot help but imagine as a cost cutting exercise, since Angelina Jolie (Mr and Mrs Smith), Jackie Chan (Police Story) and Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels) don’t come cheap these days – the film does a decent job of making Po the grownup in his partnership with Zhen, which makes it all the more frustrating when he isn’t when he’s somewhere else. Their non-speaking presence in the final montage – to a cover of ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ instead of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ – is such an obvious merchandising push that it’s almost offensive.
The silent presence of General Kai and Lord Shen feels much the same; again, presumably because Kelsey Grammer (Down Periscope) and Gary Oldman (The Fifth Element) were either not available, or not in the budget. It is particularly noticeable that Shen is just present as set dressing when the restored villains bow to Po in respect, a gesture which makes sense for Tai Lung and maybe even General Kai, but Shen’s whole deal, despite his battle prowess, was that he hated kung fu and wanted to destroy it by introducing weapons that made it obsolete.
One of the big problems of multi-media franchises is that of canon precedence. The TV series needs to follow the films, but the films deliberately ignore the TV series. Po travels the world in The Dragon Knight, but nah, Juniper City is the ‘biggest village’ he’s ever seen (and again, even if Juniper is bigger, he went to Gongmen City in 2, he knows what a major conurbation is called.)
But that’s not to say that the movie is bad. The action scenes are still a lot of fun, with a destructive chase through Juniper City to a Chinese orchestral remix of Ozzy Osborne’s ‘Crazy Train’ a real highlight.
The interaction between Po and Zhen is a lot of fun, even if Zhen’s 360-face-heel-face turn is pretty obvious. Zhen’s breakdown as she tries to keep Po from confronting the powered up Chameleon is genuinely moving.
Ping and Li’s odd-couple antics are also very sweet. Again, though, it niggles at me that none of the assorted underworld types recognise Mr Ping is the feared pirate known as the Soul Reaper. I get why canon priority is a thing, it just makes the series feel so pointless. Like… did Fishlegs really just forget that Heather existed?
Chameleon is a creepy-ass villain, and her single-minded perception of herself as the wronged victim makes her an effective foil to Po’s emergent drive to reform instead of punishing. On the other hand, her insistence that they are alike – two would-be kung fu masters rejected for their physicality and forced to work harder to achieve what others said they couldn’t is a hot nonsense, since Po achieves not by studying, but simply by pushing himself into new challenges, and also Master Mantis is a person who exists and was accepted into a prestigious kung fu apprenticeship in this world, despite being a fucking mantis. Crane has hollow bones, and Snake has no limbs, yet was accepted to study a discipline which traditionally includes punching and kicking. Chameleon, rejected for being ‘too small’ is larger than 60% of the Furious Five; maybe 80%, but I’d need to see a direct comparison to Monkey.
It’s been a while since Kung Fu Panda 3; eight years, which was the same time between the original Kung Fu Panda and its third sequel. That sort of gap usually means either someone had a great new idea, or the studio is going back to the well because other projects haven’t been doing so good. Honestly, I think this one came about from an idea, because we’re only about a year out from Puss-in-Boots: The Last Wish, a film which pretty much secured Dreamworks as the animation studio to beat, but it falls a good way short of Last Wish.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing at this stage in the studio’s history is that it just looks like all of the other Kung Fu Panda movies. A little change of art style might have gone a long way to giving it a unique flare, but while still gorgeous, sticking with the OG look (albeit with a bit more technological va va voom on the back end) just reinforces the feeling of ‘looking back’ which all of the callbacks creates. That we end with a recreation of a scene from the first movie is the icing on that proverbial cake.
I wanted to love Kung Fu Panda 4, but I have to face the fact that diminishing returns are in full effect.
Ratings
Production values –The sad fact is that the superb and glossy animation of KFP4 is just business as usual, and lacks the art-styling which made other recent Dreamworks’ productions so distinctive. 8
Dialogue and performances – Solid dialogue mixes a few good zingers with some very well-done attempts at gnomic wisdom from Po. Sadly, the character work on the Chameleon feels perfunctory, despite a grand showing from Davis, and if Dustin Hoffman remains a consumate professional, the feeling that Master Shifu would be gone in a heartbeat if he could leaves a slightly sour note. 8
Plot and execution – For the most part, this is fine, and I understand why Dragon Knight isn’t recognised, but KFP2 also feels like it has been slighted and that leaves the whole feeling a little hollow. 6
Randomness – A lot of the film feels kind of off thanks to simultaneously recalling and ignoring past films. 7
Waste of potential – I really am not angry with KFP4; I’m just disappointed, not just because of the quality of the first three movies, but because Dreamworks has been on a bit of a roll lately. 14
The Bad Movie Marathon 