Niblet
Since: Dec, 2020
04/06/2024 01:14:01
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WesternAnimation Those animals are so f*cking disappointing it makes me want to merge without looking
Literally all the pieces were there to give this film emotional weight like the last 3. They could've had Shifu come face to face with Tai Lung, or show the Chameleon's backstory instead of just telling it, Tai Lung could've had a proper redemption arc instead of glossing over his character with less than 10 lines. But it ended up just becoming the pure definition of unrealised potential.
Final nail to prove that they just did not give a shit when writing the movie was that they didn't even bother to give the Chameleon a proper name. Like I get some other characters are named after what animal they are but at least every major antagonist was given a proper Chinese name with meaning to their arc.
WesternAnimation A Decent Flick But Very Indicative of Franchise Fatigue
It's becoming obvious that the Kung Fu Panda franchise peaked with the second movie. Does this mean I disliked this film? No. Before watching it, I heard a lot of people online calling it "painfully mid" and...yeah, I can see why they would say that.
Based on the previews, I had plenty of worries going into this. I was worried that Po would suffer character regression, given that he's still shown as a goofball that screws up. That mostly didn't happen. With the female successor and female Big Bad, I was worried this film would go down a woke feminist route. Fortunately, it didn't. Good to see that some filmmakers can make a franchise more female-centric without being patronizing about it. As this wasn't promoted as a Tai Lung-centric movie, I knew he wouldn't be given a lot to do. Fortunately, they didn't nerf his character too much and at least gave him a minor character arc that (on paper) felt suitable for his character. It sucked that the Furious Five were nixed from the story, but at least they handled it in a diplomatic way and frankly, they weren't really needed here.
The biggest flaw with this movie, however, is that it doesn't feel like an epic, cinematic movie, it feels more like a TV movie. Really. From the interesting but underbaked character arcs and themes of moral grayness and trust and compassion versus self-serving deceitfulness to poor scene transitions to the overtly comedic tone, undermining even the dramatic scenes with tongue-in-cheek humor and including overly cartoonish moments like the constant Floating Advice Reminder gag, everything about this feels like a lower-tier TV movie.
As a TV movie, this would be a decent effort but as a cinematic one, it's So Okay, It's Average with some solid moments of comedy and storytelling. Part of me thinks that if they made this a spin-off focused on Zhen and the Chameleon with Po only appearing for 25% of the movie as an Eccentric Mentor, they could have had a tighter narrative and better character development, but who knows? The devil's in the details. If the Kung Fu Panda franchise is going to continue, which it probably will as long as it's lucrative, they would be better off sticking to TV series.