35. Kung Fu Panda 3
It took a long while before I finally saw this movie considering how much I loved and enjoyed the first two films. This film came out in 2016 and the trailer for the fourth one just recently came out as of the time I was writing this. What kept me away? Well, the middling response to this one did, that's what. After finally seeing the film, were the people who were middling on it correct to feel that way?
Yes. Sure. The movie is still good though.
This film looks beautiful. Like, it looks gorgeous as hell. I cannot stress this enough. It’s an extremely pretty film. That said, so are the other two. The only thing that makes this one stand out in that department are all the glowy bits in the ending though.
The abstract ideas that build up this world are still there and they still work (for the most part) but it doesn’t really do much that’s special in that regard. It has a neat idea with regards to Po needing to be a teacher. The message of needing to help teach people how to become the best versions of themselves is a pretty casual and simple one but it’s a great one. When he needs to teach the pandas in the village how to stand up and defend themselves he leans into the strengths they already have. The ribbon dancer Po meets near the start of the film, for example, is taught by Po to keep doing it but for a different purpose and then he exchanges one of her ribbons for nunchucks while telling her to do what she was already doing but with those.
That’s good stuff.
It’s got a great message for the kids in that regard and a great message for the parents too. At the end of Kung Fu Panda 2 we find out that Po’s dad, Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) is alive and he comes to see him in the valley. When he finds out that Kai, an evil dude voiced by J.K Simmons, has escaped from the Spirit World after beating Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) in a fight there, he has Po come with him to the Secret Panda Village. The promise there is that by doing so he’ll be able to awaken to the power of chi and be strong enough to stop Kai from turning all kung fu masters into jade warriors under his control.
Except it’s a bit of a ruse. The pandas used to know how to do that but they don’t anymore. He just did it to save Po’s life. It was an act done by a concerned parent who is later consoled by Po’s other father, our favorite goose Mr. Ping (James Hong), that his actions were wrong but done for the right reason and that kids getting mad at their parents is just a part of having a child.
It’s a really great scene and one that Mr. Ping needed to have with Po’s dad after spending the majority of the movie being suspicious and jealous of him. You could kind of pick up that a resolution between them needed to happen. You could also kind of pick up that because of how much Po’s dad was avoiding talking about the chi training that something was up with him concerning that whole thing.
A large chunk of the film is dedicated to him teaching Po a bunch of useless things about being a panda on purpose. When the reveal happens your time feels a bit wasted but then it flips it around when all the stuff they’ve been showing you turns out to be crucial to what the pandas need to do to actually help.
At least until the very, VERY end where they all magically just get the power to do chi again. It’s not really a problem, it’s just a little contrived and a little fast.
Honestly, the pacing of this film is one of its biggest problems. It doesn’t move lightning quick or anything but it was noticeably quicker than the others. On top of that it’s way more forward facing with the comedy. Compared to the more consistently serious second film, this one has its bread and butter baked in comedy for most of it.
Even Kai feels that way. He suffers from being a bit too big of a joke sometimes despite trying to carry himself like the dangerous badass most of the film. There were minor stints of comedy involving the villains of the other films but when it came to Tai Lung it was only at the very end when it was time for Po to demolish him. With Shen he was never the object of ridicule but rather Po was and his reactions to Po that sold the comedy. Kung Fu Panda 2 still has the absolute funniest moment in all the films to me because of that.
Kai is the least interesting of the villains in this franchise so far too. His issue isn’t even really with Po, it’s with Oogway whom he defeats at the start of the film. He’s only attacking Po because that’s what Oogway doesn’t want and defeating him would prove him wrong to have faith in him. His backstory with Oogway also feels a might incomplete. They fought in a war as brothers at arms until Oogway got injured and Kai carried him as far as he could to find help. There he discovered the Secret Village of the Pandas and their chi powers healed him.
…And then Kai immediately was like “I’mma steal all their chi and lay waste to everything. I’m evil now I guess!” and then Oogway had to defeat him.
It’s very weird. There’s an angle to the idea that he could be this vengeful guy who was ousted from history when Oogway defeated him. There’s something to that idea but it’s played for laughs and nothing much is done with it. Po’s investment in the film is centered around his own growth and his own arc towards figuring out who he is and rising as the Dragon Warrior at the end of it all. Kai is just the guy he needs to defeat so that can happen.
There’s also considerably less action in this film. When there is action, it’s good as usual but it’s noticeably less inspired in this film then the others. There’s nothing reminiscent of making an action scene set to music that’s happening via hitting pots and pans within the scenery and no slick video game references. There’s no scene of a building falling over and our heroes needing to run down it while it’s collapsing to get to a certain vantage point. There's not even something like a cool scene of them trying to get two people out of a jail cell who use kung fu to keep themselves locked inside.
Cool stuff happens but it’s not as creative as what I saw before, unfortunately.
Yeah, this movie can really just be summed up as “another one but with less of the stuff you loved.” The film is probably of a similar length in time compared to the first two but nowhere near as much happens. I did really appreciate the sentiment behind the ending and the feeling that I was experiencing the last in a chapter of films, finally, after having stayed away for so long for no real reason other than laziness.
It didn’t quite feel as final as I think it would have before finding out a fourth one was happening and to be honest, I’m not expecting it to be on the level of the second one either. (Spoilers from Future Me: It wasn't).
I think at most we’ll get something like this where it’s “another one but less” and that’s… fine. If it happens that way it’ll be fine, really. The movie could still be good. (Spoilers from Future Me: It wasn't).
This movie was indeed good but man… those first two were really something special.
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19 Mar 2025 01:14 CET
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