When Po's long-lost panda father suddenly reappears, the reunited duo travels to a secret panda paradise to meet scores of hilarious new panda characters. But when the supernatural villain Kai begins to sweep across China defeating all the kung fu masters, Po must do the impossible-learn to train a village full of his fun-loving, clumsy brethren to become the ultimate band of Kung Fu Pandas. The same rule actually applies to just about any storywith some kind of confrontation, with the best of such stories havingvillains which you even want to relate to. Kung Fu Panda trilogy is no exception. One of the reasons behind thefirst film's excellence was Tai Lung, a character so intense,conflicted and deeply rooted in the history of the KFP universe, thathis story managed to combine the vibes of two great confrontations:Obi-Wan vs Darth Vader and Darth Vader vs Luke. So it's no wonder thatmy greatest wish for every next KFP movie was to have him back somehow. The villain's complexity became the foundation on which the rest of thestory could develop. Including the main character. Po's power was in finally letting himself pursue the dreamhe's been having on his own for so long, and in how a true dream canovercome any obstacle on its way. The problems began when Po was raised to the supreme position. It'swhere the pursuit of a dream was replaced with a job. Po is not aleader, he's not even a hero, he's just a guy who does what he canbecause his heart tells him so. But letting him keep that spirit wouldmean losing pace for the franchise. So each next film was basicallycreating a new villain out of thin air or, in this film's case, fromthe other world, literally and imposing the duty of defeating him onPo, using it as a justification for granting him another magic ability. The gods are what we create ourselves. And, at the end of the day, KFP3finished creating a cult of the Dragon Warrior by transforming Po froma goofus with a heart and spirit to some kind of omnipotent goldenBuddha, smiling and just-be-yourself-preaching. The complexity is gone,the humanity, with all its inherent flaws, is gone. The only thingthat's left is the divine perfection and invulnerability. Maybe thekids will love such glossy happy ending, just like they love playingvideo games in god mode: easy win, plain and simple. But for someonemore mature, that kind of easy is just boring. Sadly, the film itself lazily meets these expectationswithout providing much else for its fan base. We start with an uninteresting villain played by J. He is anassociate of Master Oogway, and that is how he is known this joke getsreally old really fast within the film itself. He manages to escapethe spirit realm this universe's equivalent of the afterlife and isdetermined to take over the spirits of kung fu masters because.... The film simply establishes he is a bad guy who wantsrevenge and to have control over the real world - you know, yourtypical one-dimensional children's movie villain. Pandaswere known to heal Oogway with this power in the past, and it is ofcourse the only way to stop Simmons' character. This subplot eventuallyclears up what we did not know about the pandas in this universe, andof course the film goes to great lengths to make comedy out of how lazypandas turn out to be. The jokes used in this film are just rehashed jokes from the first twofilms, not providing great comedy as its predecessors since it provesto be unoriginal. Kung Fu Panda 3 is still enjoyable, but its strengthlies on the theme of questionable identity posed by the two competingfathers of the film: Mr. This is only touched on a fewtimes throughout the film, but when it is touched on it brings upinteresting questions about whether Po would need nature or nurture:that is, does he need his biological father or the one who raised him. These moments are the only ones of great intrigue within the film. There is also a return to a cop-out fighting technique from the firstfilm that makes the conflict of the story less difficult for Po to getthrough. While the film has the same spirit of its predecessors, KungFu Panda 3 is not a very fun film, but it is not terrible. Superb animation and various art styles used. Hits are emphasizedwell with excellent sound design and voice acting. Jokes are mostly good, made me laugh out loud multiple times. The plot and pacing is pretty good and character development isadequate. The Bad Stuff in order of amplitude 1. Antagonist is not really memorable with vanilla personality andmotivation. Film is obviously meant for a young-ish audience and contains someirritating slapstick and bad jokes. Should you watch it: Probably, yes. I can't stress enough how good someof the visuals are.
