Kung Fu Panda was a movie that surprised a lot of audiences. People went in to watch what they expected to be a goofy comedy for kids, and got something a lot deeper. It made sense that a sequel would be made, but sequels tend to have high expectations placed on them, and I said this before when I talked about bad movie posters, but Kung Fu Panda 2's poster just screamed "The same movie as last time, but a little less so". I guess it really should not be surprising that Kung Fu Panda 2 is not as good as the first movie, in fact, it is so much better. I usually want to save these statements for the end of my review, after all the entire point of this writing is to convince you, the reader, that these movies are worth watching or not, so I need to build up to that point. However, I really want to emphasize how good this movie actually is. Everyone says Kung Fu Panda is the perfect "Never Judge a Book by it's Cover" kind of movie, but to be absolutely clear, you do get what you expect with that movie, a goofy Kung Fu movie for kids, but with the sequel, you get one of the greatest animated movies ever made, Hell I would argue greatest movies ever made.
Kung Fu Panda 2 takes our favourite characters and puts them into a new conflict. Following Po and the Furious Five as they must save China from a peacock warlord, Emperor Shen, who has ties with Po himself. Po meanwhile, has to find inner peace, and to do so he must discover who he is, and his past. The great thing about Kung Fu Panda 2's story is that it feels like a natural extension off of the first movie, like the writers actually asked "Where do we go from here?". Lord Shen feels like the right step up from Tai Lung, both fit the story that is being told. Po's inner conflict feels natural, and his relationships feel like they naturally progressed. The first movie was about pride, and to some extent this movie is a little too, but the central theme for this movie is very clearly about trauma, letting go of the past to be a better person. Lord Shen could not let go of the soothsayer's prophecy, could not let go of his parent's banishing him, in the end, both Tai Lung's and Lord Shen's downfall were their pride and trauma, two things neither could let go of, thematically speaking, both of them are two sides of the same coin.
Like I said, the relationships feel like the have progressed naturally from the last movie, particularly the relationship between Tigress and Po. It is beyond Tigress seeing Po as an equal, she sees him as a friend, someone she doesn't want to lose. When Tigress runs to hug Po after he admits the truth, it genuinely feels like she cares, she understands what he's going through. I wish we get a full backstory about her, because it does feel like she was someone like Po at some point, maybe it's explained in one of the Television shows. Of course, we can't discuss characters without discussing the villain, some more anyway. Lord Shen is not just a great villain thematically like Tai Lung was, he's genuinely a great character. His facial expressions and Gary Oldman's fantastic performance really add a lot to the character. He genuinely comes off as a threat, but is one of those villains who is just to fascinating to watch that he becomes entertaining. Not in a Ratigan or Yzma and Kronk way where they're just so fun to watch, but in a Ramses way, where the animation, writing and performance are just so good that they create something more. The animation does just as much as the writing does, and the writing does just as much as the performance does, and the performance does just as much as the animation does in creating this character.
The animation is also a big step up from the last, and the last movie was also really good. Lighting and colour are huge parts of the movies visual appeal, and when a scene is visually darker, it isn't too dark and shadowy. However, I think the best part of the movie's animation is the fight choreography. It shows it well in the first major fight of the movie with the bandits in the village, seeing Po and the Five work as a team, bouncing off each other and playing to each others strengths was mesmerizing to watch, and the climactic fight with Lord Shen, on it's own is already one of the best animated fight scenes, but at the end when Po uses his teachings to redirect the cannon balls, that puts it in the top ten. The fight scenes were well choreographed, beautifully animated, and were pretty well set tonally too, becoming more tense as the movie goes on. The first movie had a balance with their final fight scene, wanting it to be serious, but also kind of goofy, but they definitely toned down the goofier aspect for this movie's final scene.
I really don't know what else to say here, Kung Fu Panda 2 is one of the greatest animated movies ever made. It feels like a natural extension of the first movie, the characters feel like they genuinely evolved, the animation is an improvement from a movie that already looked amazing, the fight choreography is fantastic, the voice performances are perfect, the drama and even the comedy are better than the first movie. Kung Fu Panda 2 is essentially a gilded lily, the phrase "Gild the Lily", according to Oxford Languages, means to try and improve what is already beautiful or excellent, and the first Kung Fu Panda movie was an excellent movie, usually when a movie franchise begins that good, you tend to only go down from there, yet Kung Fu Panda 2 was a big improvement. Do I even need to say this movie is a High Recommendation? Frankly, if you passed this movie up, give it a chance, it truly may surprise you with how good it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment