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“Kung Fu Panda 4” finds our confident, proactive hero Po at a career crossroads and he’s nervous. “Change is not a bad thing,” they are told. “Kung Fu Panda 4” also finds the franchise at a turning point, but there’s no reason for us to panic. DreamWorks knows what it’s doing.
The first new installment of the series in eight years is a reliably funny, sweet, and surprisingly heartfelt passing of the torch, with one paw in the past and the other in the future – a beautiful goodbye and a hello. Many other filmmakers – ahem, Marvel and DC – could learn something.
When we meet him, Poe – voiced by the always lively Jack Black – is being asked to give up his dream role as the Dragon Warrior and choose a successor. He is being pushed upward to become the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace. (This is basically the Peter Principle depicted in the animation.)
Except that Poe doesn’t want to go into management. He loves breaking skulls and still has that lovable impostor syndrome that has been there since the franchise began. He tries to short-circuit any succession plans, making the change too catastrophic.
A new enemy threatening an existential crisis provides relief – the Chameleon – an evil, powerful sorceress, voiced by Viola Davis – who looks like the lizard from the GEICO commercials, which spent too much time in Graceland.
Po joins forces with a new character – a Corsican fox named Jane, voiced by Awkwafina – who is an orphan turned thief and teaches the overly trusting panda not to trust anyone. The film then becomes a buddy road movie as the two of them search for the chameleon and get a chance to bundle their home and auto insurance.
Wait a minute, you might be asking: Where are the Furious Five — Tigress, Viper, Monkey, Crane and Mantis — who have been in every “Kung Fu Panda” iteration so far? They’re not actually in “Kung Fu Panda 4,” but the film reaches back to the first installment to bring back the snow leopard, Tai Lung, voiced by the sweet Ian McShane.
Bryan Cranston also returns to voice Po’s goofy biological father and James Hong returns as his enthusiastic adoptive father, while Dustin Hoffman reprises his role as the eye-rolling Master Shifu.
It’s a nice balance of new and old characters but there’s a masterstroke coming: Chameleon has found a way to access the spirit realm and bring back every villain Poe has ever faced. This results in a greatest hits-like fight scene that might be hard to top if it were “Kung Fu Panda 5.”
The writers of the third installment, Jonathan Abel and Glenn Berger, also return this time, joined by Darren Lemke. The film is directed by “The Lego Movie 2” director Mike Mitchell and co-directed by Stephanie Ma Stine, who worked on “Raya and the Last Dragon.”
The previous three films have largely stuck to the rural Valley of Peace, so the filmmakers changed it up this time and took Poe and Jane as police officers to Juniper City, an urban environment full of busy animals, rickshaws and oxen. Go (see a hilarious bull-in-a-z-shop joke).
As always, the animators are the real heroes here. From thick panda hair, cracking clay tiles on rooftops to rain splashing on stones, barroom brawls and petals flying from cherry trees, it is a sight to behold.
The creation of the chameleon – and his fearsome Komodo dragon guard – gives the animators the chance to show a small lizard transforming into an elephant in a matter of seconds, and they have a blast. They also occasionally delve into different animation styles, giving viewers a visual break.
There are some missteps, like a pelican character who is controlled by a fish in his mouth and three cute rabbits who seem adorable but are still deeply mentally disturbed. (“The violence makes my stomach tingle,” says one.) Also, the reuniting of Poe’s fathers, while welcome, is also kind of pointless here.
But, as Poe would say, “Skadoosh!” The filmmakers have tackled a very tricky task: paving the way for a new franchise direction, finding new ways to entertain us, reminding us of lessons like “it’s never too late to do the right thing,” and all with Black. To end the matter. Covered by Tenacious D of “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears. Accept the change.
“Kung Fu Panda 4,” a DreamWorks Animation release that hits theaters Friday, is rated PG for “mild violence, martial arts action, scary images and some mild crude humor.” Running time: 94 minutes. Three out of four stars.
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MPAA definition of PG: Parental guidance suggested.
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