Panda outfoxed

KUNG Fu Panda 2 is a real knockout … at least I presume that’s why I was asleep when the credits started rolling.
The Dreamworks animated film does what it is supposed to do. It keeps kids quiet for 90 minutes, it provides plenty of merchandising opportunities and it even sets the scene for KFP3. Sigh.
Like so many cartoon films, especially sequels, it seems to have been written using Windows Inoffensive Kids Film software.
Insert warm-hearted main character, program in life-lesson to be learnt, add quirky sidekicks. Wallpaper with mindless action scenes and, hey presto, you have a billion-dollar grossing children’s film.
The only problem for an alleged action-comedy is that no-one in the cinema laughed out loud at any point. In its defence, however, it had the action bit covered with a truckload of violence.
On the same rainy weekend that I took my kids to see KFP2, we watched a DVD of Fantastic Mr Fox, based very loosely on the wonderful Roald Dahl story.
The Wes Anderson stop-motion animation was a complete contrast to the martial arts morass that we saw earlier.
Sure, the main character was warm-hearted, but he was actually interesting and likeable, not just non-threatening.
Yes, the sidekicks were quirky, but they were genuinely weird, nasty or bizarre. They made us laugh. The villains were either despicable or inept or both. They made us laugh, too.
Jarvis Cocker even had a cameo as the bad guy’s banjo-playing henchman. Try selling that doll with a McDonald’s Happy Meal.
KFP2 was an exercise in making sure cinema tickets and toys would be sold. FMF was an exercise in trying to make a great film. They both succeeded.
– Danny Buttler