Film Review — Kung Fu Panda 4
An entirely unnecessary fourth helping of Po and co
Who asked for this? Come on, own up. I’m keeping you all here until someone takes responsibility for requesting Kung Fu Panda 4. No one? Really? Then how else do you explain the decidedly tepid fourth instalment currently cluttering multiplex screens? These things don’t just happen in a vacuum, you know. We can’t just point the finger of accusation at algorithms in the Dreamworks finance department. There has to be audience demand.
It isn’t that Kung Fu Panda 4 is bad, exactly. The animation standard, under the directorial supervision of Mike Mitchell And Stephanie Stine, is as high as one would expect. The vocal cast delivers solid performances, with the likes of Jack Black, Awkwafina, Viola Davis, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, James Hong, Ian McShane, Ke Huy Quan, Ronny Chieng, and Lora Tan Chinn providing a suitably starry line-up. Funny how modern Hollywood animated films tend to rely on big names that are heavily promoted in the marketing. That never used to be the case, until Robin Williams’s scene-stealing turn as the genie in Aladdin (1992). But I digress. Despite the above, there isn’t a single good artistic reason for Kung Fu Panda 4 to exist.
The plot? Panda Po, the Dragon Warrior, is instructed by red panda Shifu that it’s time for him to pass on…
