On January 29, the third installment of Kung Fu Panda 3 was released. And with it, very high praise. Getting 80% rating on metacritic, people are clearly loving the third film in the popular Kung Fu Panda series.
This love is not false, as the film does so much right. The story, dialogue, music, art style, and comedy all work together to create a fun family movie with a kind moral.
The movie starts with Master Oogway being confronted by an ancient villain, Kai, in the spirit realm. After a brief fight, Kai defeats Oogway and takes his chi, his spirit energy, using it to escape to the real world. It then cuts to Po and the Furious Five receiving sudden news; Po will now be teaching instead of Master Shifu. Quickly Po finds himself to be an awful teacher, questioning if he is even fit to be the Dragon Warrior.
This questioning quickly halts when he meets another Panda in his father’s Restaurant, Li. After a brief encounter, the two realize that they are related and begin bonding. While they are bonding, news of Kung Fu masters disappearing is heard, the heroes quickly discovering it to be the work of Kai, and how only a master of Chi may defeat him. Li offers to take Po to his village to learn how to use Chi.
Dreamworks has created a high quality story, and kept going with it. The colorful cast of characters have developed over time. In Kung Fu Panda 2, the Furious Five respect Po, compared to the first where he was looked at as an outsider. However, in 3 they start seeing him with less respect due to the abysmal teaching.
The comedy works well too. Almost every joke works, with only a few jokes being off. And to boot, the stories moral of “Just be yourself” is a nice and simple message that is universal.
However, this movie has its flaws. For one, 3 feels like it doesn’t last long enough. At about 90 minutes, it feels like the story was rushed, removing the ability to see the story develop. Also, there are several moments where it feels the movie tries too hard to keep up with the previous films.
Kung Fu Panda 3 is an amazing movie to start off the 2016 year. Overall Rating: 8.5/10
