While a decent kids film with some stellar animation, this DreamWorks outing feels like an odd ducking that doesn’t hold any weight compared to the other films in the Kung Fu Panda franchise.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

Many consider the Kung Fu Panda movies to be some of the greatest in the DreamWorks catalogue. Combined with a beautiful array of memorable eye candy, iconic characters, and a beautiful portrayal of Chinese culture, many praise the original trilogy of being on par with Shrek as being DreamWorks’ bread & butter. However, with sequels being as inevitable as death & taxes, many thought that DreamWorks would move on to newer projects after 2016’s Kung Fu Panda 3. But here we are eight years later, with a new instalment, giving us more of the same yet missing much of what made the original trilogy special.

At first, there’s plenty here that feels familiar for long time fans of Po & Co. For one, the animation on display is downright jaw dropping. From the fields & mountains of China to the expressions & actions of our heroes & villains, you can tell that Dreamworks didn’t skimp out any money on animating our fourth trip back to The Valley of Peace. I also liked some of the character designs, with the Chameleon having a unique deisgn that suited her & her transformations well. Locations were distinct with key detectable details (except for the big generic city) & the character animations were all distinct & varied. Furthermore, the music keeps plenty of the familiar motifs from the orginal films, while adding some new pieces of ear candy, showing that Hans Zimmer keeps kicking ass, regardless of genre & age rating.

Po-formance

Yes, Jack Black is back for another round as the Dragon Warrior, and he’s gelled so much into his role as Po, that he portrays the roles flawlessly. Po is still his gung ho, but kickass self, and you can still tell that Jack Black is having plenty of fun voicing Po. The other notable main performance comes from Viola Davis as The Chameleon (our antagonist). Viola Davis is great, and she did a great job voicing her, yet I feel like her motives & backstory were pretty weak. As a young girl, she was rejected from practicing Kung Fu because of her height & gender (even though Mantis & Viper are smaller & went on to join the Furious Five). So she studied sorcery so she could absorb the souls of dead Kung Fu masters and take over China. Kung Fu Panda is a franchise well known for their villains, so it pains me to see such a flat villain barely evolve past anything memorable.

Unfortunatley, the Furious Five are written off for first time in the franchise, and are saved for the credits, with only Seth Rogan’s Mantis only getting a singular line in. Though franchise regular Mr. Ping (voiced by James Hong) & returning favourite Lee (voiced by Bryan Cranston) do provide a solid B plot of the two dads looking for Po because they’re still worried about their son. It provides some fun jokes and actually ties into the plot & the overall theming of change. It was also nice hearing Ian McShane again as Tai Lung, even though he doesn’t contribute much to the plot. However, there is one major issue that sticks out like something in the bushes.

Stop Putting Awkwafina In Things

Awkwafina is not a good actor, yet I’m still baffled as to why Hollywood still considers her to be an asset for so many franchises. She can’t emote, most of her line deliveries are either flat or awkward, and she sounds & acts the same way in every role that she appears in. For one or two projects, it’s a non issue, but in every performance that I’ve seen from her, I can barely summarize her charcater as “quirky person trying too hard to be liked”. She writes & stars in her own episode of The Boys: Diabolical & everyone tears it apart, citing it as the worst of the season. She gets added as an awkward side character in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and everyone cites her as either annoying, unnecessary, or even both. And don’t even get me started on her musical endeavours, especially in 2023’s The Little Mermaid. To summarize, I don’t like Awkwafina and plenty of others don’t as well, and yet, not only is she cast as the secondary lead here but she’s also the worst part of this film.

For one, Zhen, her character, is initially introduced as an antagonist, which isn’t a bad thing since it sets her up for change as the movie progresses, yet her behaviour is still the same for about 80% of the runtime. It’s only near the end when it screeches to a halt and she has a change of heart, like a secondary personality awoke inside her & is taking control. She lies, cheats, steals, and has Po do all the heavy lifting without apologizing or taking any accountability for her actions. Also, her character direction was so obvious, I made a bet with my friend in the theatre and guessed that she was adopted by the villain & that she would be the replacement for the Dragon Warrior, and I was right. Even by the end of the movie, she saves Po, but I couldn’t tell if she did it because it was right of if she’d changed because of how off the pacing was. Hell, she tries to leave after the plot twist, not to save Po, but because she doesn’t want any part of the evil plan that’s almost done.

I should stress that her character development has nothing to do with Awkwafina, and this is more aimed at the writers, yet her poor line delivery & lack of emotion make me further associate her with any morally decent characters that she might’ve played. And yes, I know that this is a film made for children, but

A: We shouldn’t be degrading the quality of the content produced because it’s for kids, considering the crap that they watch regularly.

B: The original trilogy gave solid narratives & characters that offered more distinct ideas & concepts for children. Just using Tigress for example, she was an orphan like Zhen but the other children feared her because of her animal instincts & was trained by Master Shifu to become the new Dragon Warrior before Po was selected. Throughout the films, she went from resenting to respecting Po. That is character development, and it took the necessary time to do so.

When the future crux of your entire franchise is full of plot holes & shoddy character development, you might want to look for another crux.

Rushed Training

I also hate how it feels like I was watching a sped-up version of the film. The pacing was atrocious, with things just happening without a chance for the characters to breathe or reflect. It doesn’t allow for any proper character development & makes it feel like there were parts of the story that had to be cut so that the movie stays within budget. For example, the whole film revolves around change, yet I barely noticed any proper changes that occurred in the film. Master Shifu urges Po to look for the next Dragon Warrior as he’s slated to become the new Spiritual Leader for The Valley of Peace, yet this idea gets dropped as the antagonist gets dropped in. Even as the film concludes, Po decides that Zhen should become the Dragon Warrior because she had a change of heart, ignoring that she purposely led Po to the villain to get him captured, alongside everything else that she commited. Po himself also doesn’t change in any way, acting like his usual self (which isn’t a bad thing) but it could get stale for many. Even The Chameleon, who symbolizes change, stays the same throughout the movie without any remorse for her actions. Like it felt like I was watching a Kung Fu Panda Saturday morning cartoon with Jack Black (which I feel like already exists).

Here’s an idea that I typed up for fun. Have Tai Lung return as the primary villain after the Chameleon summons him to teach her Kung Fu & Tai Lung fighting off the evil Chameleon. This leads to a rematch from Kung Fu Panda 1, with Po defeating Tai Lung but realizing that the anger & hate in him had vanquished for being in the spirit realm & fulfilling Tai Lung’s initial dream of becoming a Dragon Warrior. It’d be different & unexpected but then they wouldn’t get Awkwafina for the next 101 sequels (joy).

Overall, Kung Fu Panda 4 is the weakest of the tetralogy by a country mile. It’s not a bad film, but it’s far from anything great, and I could see it getting overshadowed by the films that came before it. It’s flawed but I can see some enjoyment coming from it, strictly based on the animation alone, but just like soggy noodles, they’re fine by themselves yet you’d rather want something fresh instead.

5/10

(Pray we move on from Kung Fu Panda from here, even though we probably wont)