My personal trip through the nostalgic days of old has been an underwhelming one, to say the least. I bid farewell to some of the classic staples of my childhood. Night at the Museum was fondly remembered for some reason, a film where a CGI dinosaur runs rampant in a museum where Dick Van Dyke can dropkick Ben Stiller unable to hold a candle to the likes of Robots, Wall-E, and the Jack Black-led Kung Fu Panda. It’s one of those classic films that just about everyone I know grew up with, but I imagine very few remember more than just a handful of storytelling devices the film used.
It was quite the surprise to find that Kung Fu Panda is just as solid a film as it was the last time I watched it. That’ll have been about a decade ago. Dreamworks’ animated features during this time were often a little shaky on their feet, Over the Hedge had proven that a couple years before, but maybe the nostalgia tinted glasses I have for that film are making me fonder for woodland animals torturing the lives of suburban America. Either way, Kung Fu Panda hit the theatres at the right time, a mixture of good animation that holds up a decade later, and an impressive cast that loaned their identifiable voices to the film, turning a rather overdone story of finding the value within yourself into a truly engaging childhood classic.
Po (Jack Black), is a solid lead. Black has always been a good draw for childhood classics, but here his voice booms through a cast of heavy-hitting names, louder than anyone could have expected. He spars well with the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan and Ian McShane with relative ease, it’s hard to point to one definitively superb performance when the quality throughout from everyone is so consistent and engaging. It’s far from perfect, that’s a given, but the offerings of directing pair Mark Osborne and John Stevenson make for an endlessly rewatchable, extremely light watch that won’t be too taxing for a mind coated in alcohol, grilled cheese and a fading memory of the early 2000s.
A film from your childhood that is, to some degree, worth revisiting, Kung Fu Panda holds within it a rather cliché and typical story, but what it does with various subplots and counterpoints to stereotypes is rather enjoyable. It knows what it is, a good bit of fun for kids, and a trip down memory lane for young adults, and it’s perfectly harmless. Solid animation, entertaining performances, and even a few jokes that hold up to this day, it’s as good as you’ll get for a Dreamworks project released in the waning years of their glory days.
