Road to Kung Fu Panda 4 - Kung Fu Panda 3 Review

 

Well, here we are. The final review on the road to Kung Fu Panda 4.

Kung Fu Panda 3 is a martial arts comedy, the sequel to Kung Fu Panda 2, making it the third installment of the film series. It was produced by DreamWorks Animation, China Film Group Corporation, Oriental DreamWorks, and Zhong Ming You Ying Film and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Kung Fu Panda 3 was written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger and directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni.

The story is, Po has been reunited with his biological father. This happy reunion is soon cut short when the deadly General Kai arrives. Po soon learns he can't beat Kai because of his mastery with chi stealing. Po's biological father soon tells him about the panda village that can teach him chi. But Po must learn or Kai will steal every single kung fu masters' chi.

• Negatives

I've got nothing here.

• Mix

The only mix bag was the villain, General Kai. Now, he does have some interesting things about him. He's a ruthless warrior, and he's angered by the fact that he's been forgotten. So angry that his motivation is to not only steal chi to become powerful, but use said chi to destroy Oogway's legacy and make him forgotten history. Now that's a really great character for a villain, the issue? Well, they just gave him far too many comedic moments. Now yes, Tai Lung and Lord Shen did have their far share of comedy, but the thing is with those two villains we still got a lot more depth and serious moments with them. We sadly didn't get that many with Kai.

• Positives

One positive thing is once again, the animation. Yeah this is starting to become a cliché praise with these reviews, but come on, the animation is just fantastic. I especially liked the look to the spirit realm. With each movie the animation just keeps getting better and better.

Then we have the humor. While I didn't laugh at maybe one or two moments, this was still a very funny movie. My favorite bit was probably when Tigress was so confused by Po's teachings with the other pandas.

The last thing I'll write about is the score. Unsurprisingly Hans Zimmer does a tremendous job with the original music. I especially loved his theme for Kai, it sounds awesome and I can't help but play it over and over again whenever I get the chance.

While Kung Fu Panda 3 does have some slight issues, mainly with its main villain, I can't say I was fully disappointed. I mean, I've seen far worse sequels to otherwise great films.

My final rating is, Good.

Well, that's it. Both for this Road to and this review. Come back on Saturday, Mar 9th, for my review of Kung Fu Panda 4. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.