The weekend movie scene last weekend seemed so promising, with not one but TWO major openings; “The Incredible Hulk” and “Get Smart.” But when The Big Green Guy opened at only 72% and the Secret Agent Man came in at a whopping 52% (Rotten Tomatoes of course, the movie-goer’s bible), I decided to skip the new releases and head to a flick that promised lots of laughs and loads of summer fun…’Kung Fu Panda.” I mean, hey…the trailer looks great, right? And at 88% on good ol’ RT, could I be wrong? Hell, yeah.
Let’s start with the good stuff. First, it looks absolutely amazing. It is DreamWorks, after all, so it should. The martial arts scenes are particularly well animated, and the backgrounds are beautiful. The Asian-ish soundtrack by composer Hans Zimmer does its job without being overwrought. And be sure to watch for the very cleverly animated DreamWorks logo at the very beginning of the film.
I was also glad to see (hear?) that the voice talent was not over-used. Sometimes the actors’ voices are so well known that they overshadow the characters; this time around they’re certainly well known, but they don’t take over.
Now, for the bad stuff- which is just about everything else. Oddly enough, the first thing that comes to mind is…the voice talent. There are some pretty famous people here, including Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Jackie Chan (?!?) …yet with only a couple of exceptions, the characters speak so little that I didn’t even recognize the voices until their names came up in the credits. I guess this isn’t so much a problem as it is an oddity to me- do you really need to pay Angie to say two lines when anyone could have done it, possibly even better, and for a whole lot less money? In hindsight, I guess the fact that the producers thought they needed that much “clout” should have been a clue that there wasn’t much going for it from the start.
As for the rest- there’s almost no story, what’s there isn’t funny, there’s no characterization, and I found myself bored through most of the film. I couldn’t even muster up sympathy for the fat, luckless panda. Only Dustin Hoffman got a smile out of me, but unfortunately, he can’t carry it alone-try as he might.
Let’s start with the good stuff. First, it looks absolutely amazing. It is DreamWorks, after all, so it should. The martial arts scenes are particularly well animated, and the backgrounds are beautiful. The Asian-ish soundtrack by composer Hans Zimmer does its job without being overwrought. And be sure to watch for the very cleverly animated DreamWorks logo at the very beginning of the film.
I was also glad to see (hear?) that the voice talent was not over-used. Sometimes the actors’ voices are so well known that they overshadow the characters; this time around they’re certainly well known, but they don’t take over.
Now, for the bad stuff- which is just about everything else. Oddly enough, the first thing that comes to mind is…the voice talent. There are some pretty famous people here, including Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Jackie Chan (?!?) …yet with only a couple of exceptions, the characters speak so little that I didn’t even recognize the voices until their names came up in the credits. I guess this isn’t so much a problem as it is an oddity to me- do you really need to pay Angie to say two lines when anyone could have done it, possibly even better, and for a whole lot less money? In hindsight, I guess the fact that the producers thought they needed that much “clout” should have been a clue that there wasn’t much going for it from the start.
As for the rest- there’s almost no story, what’s there isn’t funny, there’s no characterization, and I found myself bored through most of the film. I couldn’t even muster up sympathy for the fat, luckless panda. Only Dustin Hoffman got a smile out of me, but unfortunately, he can’t carry it alone-try as he might.
Here’s hoping that Disney/Pixar’s “Wall-E” will finally deliver the goods and be the summer CG movie to beat.
