Kung Fu Panda 3 is the latest installment of Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda franchise, and once again, I am pleasantly surprised at how good it actually was.
I read somewhere that this movie was originally supposed to be released in December of 2015. They pushed it to January 2016 because it would’ve been competing with Star Wars… and that would’ve been box office suicide. This explains why it’s the best January movie to come out in a long, long time.
Kung Fu Panda 3 is one of those movies that I was cautiously hopeful for prior to seeing it in theaters. As Dreamworks’ very own Shrek has proven, the third time around is where things start to get a little messy. But fortunately, Kung Fu Panda 3 pulled through!
The film once again stars Jack Black as the panda named Po. Po has been the student, he’s been the hero, and now he’s a kung fu master. He doesn’t think that there’s much more he can learn about kung fu or himself, but when he’s reunited with his long lost father, voiced by Bryan Cranston, and a new supernatural villain called Kai, voiced by J.K. Simmons, threatens a secret panda village, Po finds he must learn how to teach as well as learn the art of Chi.
One thing I liked about the second Kung Fu Panda movie was that it didn’t repeat the same formula as the first. Po didn’t need to be re-taught about the art of kung fu (sort of like what happened in Karate Kid 2). He went to the next level of his skills, and grew as a character instead of being set back. This third movie takes him to the next level once again, and he has to prove that he is the Dragon Warrior that he was always told to have been. I have to commend the filmmakers for choosing the story routes they did, because it made this trilogy way better than I think anyone ever expected it to be.
Kung Fu Panda 3 doesn’t have as much of an emotional impact like, say, How to Train Your Dragon, but definitely won’t leave you disappointed. I do wish that certain characters and plot points could’ve been developed and given more screen time to show, but for what I saw, I was thoroughly entertained.
The parts that I loved the most were Po’s dad, the villain, and the music. Bryan Cranston as Po’s dad was hilarious, and his relationship with his long lost son was done very, very well. Kai has to be my favorite of the villains of the trilogy. He’s equally funny as he is intimidating. He’s also got the power to harness every kung fu master’s Chi and turn them into jade zombies under his command… so that’s pretty awesome. But my absolute favorite thing out of this entire movie was the musical score by Hans Zimmer (funny how I mentioned him in just my previous review as well). Kai’s theme was unique and has been stuck in my head since I left the theater. The rest of the music was simply beautiful. I didn’t even know it was Hans Zimmer until I looked it up for my review! And I want the entire soundtrack so I can listen to it while I work!
If you liked the other two Kung Fu Panda movies, then I believe you’ll like this one as well. I enjoyed this film from start to finish. It had all the laughs and action that I could ask for. The animation is fantastic as well! I’d say it’s one of Dreamworks’ best looking movies, and I don’t give that compliment lightly. I highly recommend seeing this movie while it’s still in theaters. It concludes a nice little trilogy… that will most likely be ruined by the next three that Dreamworks plans to make. But I guess we’ll just deal with that as it comes.
FINAL RATING: 44 / 50
STORY: 4 / 5
VOICE ACTING: 4 / 5
CHARACTERS: 4 / 5
ANIMATION: 5 / 5
ACTION/COMEDY: 5 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 5 / 5
TONE: 4 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 5 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 4 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 4 / 5
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