Kung Fu Panda 4 Could've Been GREAT

now I've never thought that Kung Fu Panda needed another movie but after watching this new one I stand by that original assessment Kung Fu Panda 4 is nowhere near the greatness of the first two and has fully supplanted the third as the worst movie in the franchise it's not terrible but when held up to what came before then yeah it kind of sucks as where the previous films managed to elevate themselves into genuinely great action films with beautiful messages and epic moments becoming more than just the kids films that the trailers made them out to be Panda four is a Kids film in every sense of the word slipping into a bland if poppy experience that's good for wasting a kid's time so the parents can go do other things it's not the worst thing in the world but once you start looking at what it's trying to do versus what it achieved then all you're left with is a deep deep deep sense of disappointment something is very off about this film and allow me to explain why as what it's trying to do goes against the very nature of this franchise and it's just like no they would never be able to commit to it we love you Kung Fu Panda now to be clear this review will have spoilers go watch the film if that's something you'd be interested in after my glowing endorsement I just had but this is your time to leave 3 2 1 spoiler time now this movie's plot is about po the Dragon Warrior after all his adventures getting told he needs to retire as a dragon warrior and pick a successor only for a new villain to pop up Q story that ends with po getting a new partner and possible successor now that last bit right there is the true problem of this series as Kung Fu Panda as a franchise will never replace po leaving this entire Arc about po taking on a mentorship role to be as Hollow as it is poorly set up you see po at the beginning of the film is doing fine he's the Dragon Warrior he's kicking ass taking names and acting like he usually does which I think is this story's biggest issue po hasn't changed and he really doesn't change over the course of the film The idea po training the next generation is kind of a cool idea it's something that I could get behind and it would be a great way of showing him moving on to a new stage in his life while saying up someone else to take on the mantle of the Dragon Warrior but the longer this film goes on the more and more obvious it is that this film is just unwilling to actually Seline po or change him in any way that might dampen Jack Black's high Natural Energy and make him feel less of a kid which creates a massive problem for this film and what it's going for as if PO is acting like he usually does why the the fuck does he need to change well the answer they give is because Shifu just tells him to that's it that's the entire reason for this switch up which renders there to be a massive disconnect between what the character needs versus what he wants I honestly think one of the biggest issues in this fil is that is just unwilling to age po or change him in any meaningful way he's still this nebulous early 20s guy who acts like he's 10 who is just as effective as he's always been PO is still in the Dragon Warrior Stage of his life so it feels weird that that Shifu is coming down hard telling PO he needs to do this for reasons that basically just amount to I Told You So the lessons po has learned throughout his life have all been given to him by Shifu yes but they for the most part all naturally built upon one another and AED po becoming a more Fuller person here though Shifu is pretty much just asking po to give up everything for no real tangible reason other than it's expected rendering the idea that PO needs a change to feel very dumb and very forced and I think the easy way they could have fixed this is just have po start the film just slightly older have him actually start to feel his age this then makes the idea of him so desperately trying to hold on to being the Dragon Warrior in spite of the reality of his situation just it would make complete sense then it would create pathos it would create conflict as po realized that he does need to pass on the torch to someone else and then after so many years of defining himself as a dragon warrior it's time for him to step back and to find other ways to learn and grow they needed to and I can't believe I'm saying this hoc Cars 3 where we commit to passing the torch and show a hot shot young hero start mentoring a new Apprentice but we don't do that because Kung Fu Panda is po the franchise feels too scared to divest itself of its star and commit to having someone else just be given the spotlight posar about becoming a spiritual leader is underbake and barely feels relevant to the story him using wisdom to beat his problems never feels like it's ever properly done or really used to build up to anything and the only real example of him teaching is barely 20 seconds long po passing the torch is really more about the McGuffin of the story than po himself so his main Arc is basically nonsense it all boils down to PO promising to hang out with Aquafina in the future as Kung Fu Panda is just too scared of changing Po and losing their marketability to kids so the entire premise of this story was doomed to fail from the start they could have made this Arc work for po but they didn't they don't age him up and instead have Shifu a character who learned to accept others as they are forcing po to change because the plot says so I'm not trying to turn you into me I'm trying to turn you into you so that was a fucking lie this to me is the biggest thing that rers this whole film just no but trust me the problems don't stop there because we also have the pacing you're going to pay for that I don't know if this is just me becoming an old ass man I swear that this movie feels like it's moving at 1.25 speed till like the last 20 minutes of the film like I've seen faster more desperate to hold your attention kids films but I think what annoys me about this one is that it's not even NE necessarily moving that fast the characters aren't talking a million words a minute no the real issue is that the film is incapable of shutting the fuck up I legit started playing a game while watch this movie called The 2C rule where if a character didn't talk or we had some visual gag for more than 2 seconds I would take a sip of my drink so naturally I left that film with chap lips cuz this movie never stops it refuses to linger on anything which I think does this film a massive disservice as we never have any time to let a shot or moment sink in or stick with us the movie starts with a fake out return of Ty lung but his attack on the Village People is so quick that we never fully have the time to let the horror of the scene sink in the film's villain chameleon has a crazy power but she never gets the chance to feel intimidating so she ends up to becoming a nothing villain H and Shan never really have a time to develop a bond as they're just bouncing between jokes and Exposition the common dramatic moments of the original film are all gone with only brief instances that recapture that tense Vibe like Jen and post fight on the wall apparently this film was locked into being 90 minutes long and you can honestly tell while it was fucked by this premise I don't think it was really doomed by this runtime as ping and Lee Side Story yeah easily the best part of this movie but you could easily cut them out and give the rest of the story more time to breathe we'll need to have them here to deliver the message to PO you could just had a moment of self-reflection or Hell have a meet ugu for some Spirit nonsense there are options get the same effect in less time we didn't need a full side plot also next on list of complaints is the villain chameleon is without a doubt the worst build in kung fu pan history though that's not nearly as bad as it sounds given that the previous list is composed of tyong shen and Kai who was the worst but even if his personality was lacking he more than made up for it with his fights his entrances and his Kick-Ass theme song not to mention the destruction of the Jade Temple all these accomplishments allowed a lack lesser villain to still feel like a legitimate threat meanwhile the chameleon is just wasted potential the problem with chameleon comes down to a few things main one being we never actually see her do anything being worthy of fear her appearance as taong is too quick and she doesn't really do anything impressive her appearance in intimidating the gangsters could have been something but it ends in a joke pushing someone down the stairs when if they want to really cement her as a true presence she honestly needed to kill this guy but by far the biggest weakness of the chameleon is that she never actually beats po she lurs him into a trap yes but after that everyone is crying about how po couldn't possibly beat her in a fight you're then struck by the fact that the chameleon hasn't been a train fighter once in this entire story not to mention the fact that this is the final battle so we already know PO is going to win B Davis is doing her best but there just isn't enough here to elevate the chameleon into a credible threat when we have seen the monsters po defeated in the past so even the threat apparently going up against older cooler villains doesn't really land as we know the real Bland villain behind them not to mention that her plan is just basically a rehash of Ka her Gathering material is a rehash of shen and her jilted Apprentice is just a ripoff of taong so the fact they keep going oh she's POS TR Nemesis his true foil it doesn't fully track though that's still not nearly as bad as her motivations which are such complete horseshit now there's a post floating around about the production of this film and since it's unsourced and sounds like a haters wet dream I don't feel like I want to give it any real Credence but one thing that feels right on the money is how Apparently one of the directors didn't want to give chameleon a backstory for the longest time and after seeing the backstory that they gave her yeah that feels about right as her villain origin story is that she was turned away from Kung Fu Masters because she was too small which like I hate saying this but it feels like the team of whoever wrote this didn't watch the previous films as this idea of being rejected based on their size is a joke because mantis and Viper's existence immediately disproves it if she said she was weak I'd get it but too small doesn't track with everything we've seen about this world and its Masters we have a master chicken Shifu looks like he's barely taller than her how is this supposed to create an interesting villain backstory when it's so easily disproven like someone please tell me make this make sense like this is almost as ging as having Tai fucking lung bow to Poe at the end of the movie like to me this is like the most out of character moment I've seen in a movie in a while as tyong he wouldn't bow to PO this man found out that he wasn't the Dragon Warrior tried to kill the village was in prison for 20 years bound to the floor and he still did not give up once on his goal this man tried to kill his own father to get what he wants he's treated like a villain till this one moment so I refuse to believe that he would ever do this shit he would never willingly bow to PO he would try to stab Po in the back and rip ugu staff from his cold dead hands this is like scar crowning Simba as king or judge frolo caring about consent it goes against the very fabric of their being and you would need a whole movie just to make this idea semi plausible like it's the little things but between this and cun's backstory and again Loki feels like the writers didn't watch the previous films which is crazy since this film has the original writers so I don't know what the hell's happening honestly I think this film would have worked a lot better as a spin-off where we can focus just entirely on the kameleon Jen's relationship have Jen be the long-suffering Apprentice who needs help turning to light only for po to nudge them into the right direction like way and the Goat did for him I like the idea chameleon being this abusive Mentor the potential for an interesting story is there but the reveal their real relation is too late in the game that it doesn't really have a chance to be anything other than a Twist which is my other hot take they really need to hit a Jen being The chameleon's Apprentice way earlier like the idea is there Shifu announces PO is looking for an apprentice the Cameleon pulls a strange stunt to get Po's attention and Jen might just have an idea of who's behind it while you see the idea of like okay this is all a master manipulation there's not really enough foreshadowing to build dread it just happens genen regrets it moving on if we had more time for po to train genen and we knew that they were leading him into a trap then yeah this could kind of almost work and yeah we'd have a more interesting internal conflict to watch and wonder what's going to happen as is it's just a surprise that doesn't really add anything for repeat viewings and even then it has its own share of plot holes like why does Jen have a bounty in her master's City like this kind of seems like a liability and a waste of time when all the chameleon wants is for po to come to her house if it's to make Po and Jen spend more time together to build trust so that PO will eventually hand her the staff I counter that with the fact that they didn't even know the staff needed to be given willingly till po told them when they all start their travels so how did the chameleon know that they need more time to be friends like it all just feels contrived to be honest and while we're here Jen is fine it's just Aquafina doing an Aquafina character but po partnering with a street rat yeah that's kind of a decent combo emphasis though on partnering Jen feels less like a successor and more like his new adventuring buddy if they want to actually commit to PO passing the torch they need to make Jen feel younger rather than the same age is as po Jen as a character could grow on me later but just like the sequel I'm in no hurry to see them anytime soon as this film is a downgrade in pretty much every respect it still doing a pinch but it is missing the sauce every Kung Fu P movie before this had at least two moments just engraved into my psyche Tong's escape the bridge fight po escaping the tower and remembering his past even three had the ugay fight and Kai's theme song which is permanently on my workout track but this movie like I have the Dual belly attack between Po and his copycat we have a little bit of Crazy Train cover which was funish but the second I left this film it all just immediately starts to blend together the action is missing that wow factor that so many other fights in the past had but also this film has more animal puns than the previous three films combined like they are everywhere and it got a little bit annoying pretty quickly though to wrap up this review let me just nuke any Goodwill you might have had towards me as I really don't care that the Furious 5 aren't in this movie The fous 5 to me have always been wasted potential with each subsequent film using them less and less with even fan favorites like Tyra getting reduced to taking care of a child in the third film they have some good action scenes yes but I always thought that as just being more of a test to the people behind the screen than the ones on it so when I heard that this film was forcing them into being just full cameos I was completely content with that as his franchise has always wasted them you know what fuck it we're not doing this anymore the five have always been great Concepts but honestly their celebrity voice town and the millions of dollars for every single line of dialogue has always just been a detriment to making the five just being fully fleshed out characters this was always the direction they were being pushed towards and apparently their preses in just the creds is purely because the marketing team forced them in lateen to production Kung Fu pan needs to either fully give them a real Arc which they won't do because money so for me it is a Kinder fate to just let them not be here than force him to stand around and get beaten by the next villain so po can rescue them later I honestly can respect that choice as this film is already starred for time so having five more characters just stand around to do nothing would have been a disservice to everybody so best just rip the Band-Aid off and move forward and if you want more of them hey just go watch the TV show as one episode of that will give them more character than 3 movies did overall I think Kung Fu pan 4 is a bland experience that fails to justify or follow through on its own premise the story needed more time to breathe or need to cut the side plot to work within its own limited runtime I'm not against them making more movies as I've long given up on any IP being given the Dignity of ending but yeah this film it's mid not terrible but it's certainly not great all right this has been sarcastic chorus tell me what you all thought of the film what your host for any future sequels and don't forget to like share and subscribe love you all peace out

Channel: Sarcastic Chorus

Views: 218,768

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Id: UALoXPSBgh8

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2024