KUNG FU PANDA

Awesomeness! I can't get enough of that word. Not long ago, a friend of mine used it in a sentence. It didn't sound right so I had to look it up in the dictionary if the word does actually mean something... and there it was! Fast-forward to the present and the word is everywhere! Thanks to Dreamworks, Jack Black, and the rest of the people responsible for Kung Fu Panda.

I saw this with a friend and her niece, who's 5 or 6 of age I think, and she had a blast watching the movie... we all did. The animation was awesome! Lots of bright colors for the kids, mesmerizing sceneries that sets the ambiance just right, funky characters, and the attention to detail was... uh... awesome! My favorite scenes has got to be the "escape from prison" scene and definitely the "dumpling battle".

The story is your typical loser-turns-hero-beats-bad guy-saves-the-world thing... ok, maybe he just saves the town or whatever it's called, it's as shallow as... uh... can't think of a metaphor right now so just think of the most shallow thing you can come up with... like my brain right now. The point is: there's no deep, philosophical plot in the movie, there is, however, a lesson to be learned. Follow your dream. Or, for the pessimist in you: Leave your dad's rotting business and become a rockstar of awesomeness!

The characters... well, except for Po (the panda), we don't get to know much about them, in the sequel maybe? All I know is that the Furious Five: Tigress; Monkey; Viper; Crane; Mantis; are the most common kung fu stances used in old kung fu movies. Anyways, Jack Black owns this movie from start to end.

To wrap things up, I really liked the direction Dreamworks went with this movie. There were no pop-culture reference (none that I could think of), no sudden break-out into song (which is getting annoying as of late), and no ending that presumes a sequel. Just a fun movie for the whole family. Awesomeness!

I never knew pandas were so... bouncy.