Kung Fu Panda

Mark Osborne and John Stevenson make a sensible choice with Kung Fu Panda: they take the kung fu seriously enough for the comedy to work. This is an enjoyable family adventure, carried by its fights and Jack Black’s appealing voice performance as Po. The story is familiar, and Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger’s screenplay does little to disguise how few surprises it has. We would happily spend an evening with this panda, even when the writing leaves him short of anything interesting to say.

Jack Black gives Po enough eagerness to make the underdog story worth following. His silliness is endearing, and the voice performance leaves space for the animation to do much of the comic work. That matters in a film whose central joke could have worn out quickly. He makes Po enjoyable company through stretches where the screenplay is merely getting on with the expected business, and the affection survives some fairly broad comedy.

The chopstick battle between Po and Shifu is the clearest example of what the film gets right. We laughed because the timing makes such small movements feel so important. Dustin Hoffman and Jack Black have a scene that builds its comedy out of the fight itself, without interrupting it to explain the joke. Across the action, C.K. Horness’s editing handles changes of pace deftly, giving us time to appreciate the physical business before moving on.

Yong Duk Jhun’s cinematography makes the movement readable, including when the film pauses it for a freeze frame. Raymond Zibach’s production design gives those fights a colourful, detailed setting that remains worth looking at between the blows. The scenery helps the film feel larger than its elementary story. John Powell and Hans Zimmer’s music keeps the action lively, although its eagerness occasionally feels unnecessary when the movement is already doing the work.

The supporting characters are the main disappointment. Angelina Jolie’s Tigress and Seth Rogen’s Mantis belong to a cast that sounds more promising than the writing proves to be. The screenplay gives us too little reason to become as interested in them as in Po, and famous voices cannot supply what has not been written. Some of the dialogue consequently feels like time spent waiting for another fight, rather than a chance to get to know the company.

As a martial-arts comedy, though, this has a welcome respect for the thing it is borrowing. The fights have enough wit and energy to entertain someone who came for the action, while slow motion and freeze frames help make the movement funny. The filmmakers understand that a comic fight still needs to work as a fight. For a family animation with such a ready-made joke in its title, that degree of care is worth appreciating.

At 90 minutes, it asks for a reasonable amount of patience when the writing becomes predictable. There is enough invention in the action to repay it, though anyone hoping for equally rich work across the whole cast should lower their expectations. Choose it for an evening when a well-timed scrap matters more than being surprised by the story.