BEFORE: I'll probably end up posting something very late on Friday, though I finished watching this late Thursday night on Peacock, I have to work a double-shift today, both jobs, because I agreed a few weeks ago to cover someone's shift today, she'd accidentally double-booked herself or forgot about a previous engagement, who knows, but sure, I'll take the shift, I can sleep when I retire, if I make it that long.
Awkwafina carries over again from "Migration", and yes, this is her fourth appearance in a row, and her sixth for the year, since I used her in a link back in January.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Kung Fu Panda 3" (Movie #2,496)
THE PLOT: After Po is tapped to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace, he needs to find and train a new Dragon Warrior, while a wicked sorceress plans to re-summon all the master villains whom Po has vanquished to the Spirit Realm.
AFTER: It's more of the same for the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise (pan-chise?) only it's really not, because most of the Furious Five are off on other missions not seen on film, they only make a brief appearance at the end, and only one of them speaks. Hmm, where have I seen this sort of thing before? Right, in "Across the Spider-Verse", where they had cameos from the alternate Spider-People from various other realities, only they didn't SAY anything, so then they didn't have to pay Nicolas Cage or John Mullaney anything, just by giving their characters nothing to say. Here they didn't have to pay Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu or Jackie Chan, and it's just as simple, just don't have their characters say anything and save some money to put towards the animation, I guess. Or hire five new actors for what they would have had to pay Angelina Jolie, probably.
I think only four of these actors have been in a "Kung Fu Panda" movie before, just Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong and Bryan Cranston. What more do you need, really? Just build a movie with new characters around these four, you'll be fine. Besides, it's been EIGHT YEARS since the last movie, the teens who enjoyed the first three films are in college now, and they probably don't have time to watch a movie. A perfect excuse to bring in Awkwafina as a stealthy fox thief character, who has ties to the main villain, the Chameleon, voiced by Viola Davis, another new entry to the franchise's cast.
Po is supposed to be giving up his warrior role, now that he's been made the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, but he just can't resist going on one last kung fu adventure, and one last chance to defy Master Shifu. Besides, it's being the Dragon Warrior that allows him to eat so many dumplings and maintain his panda-like bulky shape. If he didn't do the Kung fu, just imagine how fat he WOULD get. So sure, let's make him walk across China to the home city of the Chameleon, it's good exercise for him.
What doesn't really make sense here is that a group of miners reports seeing Po's old enemy, Tai Lung, who's supposed to be dead - no, sorry, in the Spirit Realm. Now it's explained that maybe it's the Chameleon taking on the shape of Tai Lung, but that doesn't really make sense either, because later in the film when she ends up with Po's staff, she opens the door to the Spirit Realm and Tai Lung is the first warrior she brings back. But if she could already appear in his form, then why did she need to bring him back? Or if he was already HERE, then how could he still be THERE and maybe she didn't need to bring him back? That's pretty confusing, was it Tai Lung we saw in the first scene or not? We never really get an answer.
It's stated that the Chameleon can shape-shift into any animal, but, umm, wait a minute, NITPICK POINT here, that's not what a chameleon does. A chameleon (in the real world) can change its color to blend in with a tree or some green grass (supposedly) but it can't change its SHAPE, or its MASS to grow as big as an elephant, that's impossible. I know, Kung Fu magic, ancient Chinese secret and all that, but just like lemmings don't really stampede themselves over cliffs and die, chameleons don't change their shape, just their color. Sometimes.
The Chameleon here was a female lizard who wanted to learn Kung Fu, but was told by the Masters that she wasn't good enough, or wasn't strong enough, basically wasn't male enough. Well, sure, we should not permit sexism in any form, but you know, maybe it was a different time, and we shouldn't hold those individuals responsible for not training a woman, maybe the previous generations were sexist, but now it's the present, and she could probably train in Kung Fu now if she wanted to, there shouldn't be anyone standing in her way NOW even if they were then. But no, she decides the easiest thing to do (instead of being persistent and asking again, or finding more equitable martial arts trainers) is to steal this staff and open up the portal to the Spirit Realm, then call forth those sexist past masters who wouldn't train her and steal their Kung fu abilities and powers. Not cool, why not just train and put in the work?
What's worse, the film sets up this pattern for the Chameleon to get powers, call the dead master back from the Spirit Realm, steal his powers, put him in a cage, then repeat. There's then a big final battle between the Chameleon and Po and Zhen, during which the Chameleon looks at times like a giant panda. But she never stole Po's powers, so what gives? The film can't even keep its own rules straight about how this whole power-stealing ability works. Look, I guess audiences didn't really care because this film made like $548 million worldwide, but still, I'd like to see a little more consistency about how the magic works in this anthropomorphic martial-arts based world.
Honestly, I'm too tired right now to try and figure out complicated things and the wah they SHOULD have been. Gonna get some sleep, because we're driving out to Long Island tomorrow morning - so no movie tonight, but I'll still watch something tomorrow and get the review up before the end of the day.
Also starring the voices of Jack Black (last heard in "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood"), Viola Davis (last seen in "The Woman King"), Dustin Hoffman (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Bryan Cranston (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), James Hong (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Ian McShane (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 4"), Ke Huy Quan (last seen in "Everything Everywhere All at Once"), Harry Shum Jr. (ditto), Ronny Chieng (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Cedric Yarbrough (ditto), Lori Tan Chinn (last heard in "Turning Red"), Seth Rogen (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Jimmy "Mr. Beast" Donaldson, James Murray, James Sie (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Vic Chao (last seen in "Walk of Shame"), Audrey Brooke, Lincoln Nakamura, Cece Valentina, April Hong (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 3"), Peggy Etra, Gedde Watanabe (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Karen Maruyama (last seen in "Self Reliance"), Tom McGrath (last heard in "Penguins of Madagascar"), Christopher Knights (ditto), Phil LaMarr (last heard in "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe"), Colleen Smith (last heard in "The Happytime Murders"), Sarah Sarang Oh, Paul Pape, James Taku Leung, Steve Alterman.
RATING: 6 out of 10 "Wanted" posters
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