Kung Fu Panda - mini-review

Jack Black is a cartoon character come to life, and so voicing an animated character is the perfect role for him. I've loved Jack Black and his zaniness since High Fidelity. He was a blast in School of Rock and I even loved his gentle crazy romantic in The Holiday with Kate Winslett, but he was miscast in King Kong. Did anyone really believe all those men would follow Jack Black to the ends of the earth?

The voice casting for Kung Fu Panda is dead on. Angelina Jolie smolders as the all so serious tiger who loses out to Jack Black's pudgy panda as Dragon Warrior. Dustin Hoffman is maybe a little lemur, and is Po's exasperated kung fu master, who discovers the best way to train Po is by using food as a reward. The fight over the last steamed dumpling was amazing! Ian McShane of Deadwood plays the best evil rumbling voiced big cat since the tiger in Jungle Book! Seth Rogan of Knocked Up was a surprising voice choice as Mantis, David Cross of Arrested Development plays Crane with Jackie Chan also doing a short voice cameo as Monkey.

So, did I enjoy the movie? We saw it on IMAX and to quote Jack Black, I was blinded by its awesomeness. I loved it! Po's dream sequences are even gorgeous graphic novel like 2-D paintings. It's inventive, it looks great and we howled with laughter. The whole family loved it, and I consider this a new classic animated film. Three and a half stars edging to almost four. This is not just for kids, but I liked that it wasn't full of the "of the moment" adult aimed jokes as the Shrek movies have had.