Kung Fu Panda

Starring Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, and Ian McShane. Rated G.

If you’re over the age of 12, you may want to heartily dislike an animated panda that uses the word awesome a lot. But Kung Fu Panda—a formulaic yet charming kiddie martial-arts adventure set in a fantasy China—won’t let you, and neither will all the small, enthralled people laughing, clapping, and throwing their arms up in the air.

Jack Black—toned down to a sweeter, humbler version of his usually manic characters—voices Po, the rotund, noodle-eating bear. The only panda in a village of cute bunnies, pigs, and geese, Po will one day inherit his father’s (a goose, curiously) noodle shop, but he secretly dreams of being a kung-fu master. (An opening hand-drawn action sequence, the product of Po’s slumbering fantasies, is a visual highlight.)

As any child who’s watched enough of these flicks knows, just because you’re a flabby panda doesn’t mean you can’t become the Dragon Warrior—which is why it’s okay to say that that’s exactly what happens.

Never mind that nearby there’s an elite martial-arts seminary run by cranky kung-fu master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), a red panda who teaches five gifted students with little personality but many awesome moves: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Crane (David Cross). Everybody is irritated when Yodalike turtle Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim), picks Po to battle Tai Lung (Ian McShane), a snow leopard/student gone bad. (Don’t endangered snow leopards have enough problems?)

The filmmakers went to school on live-action martial-arts flicks, and there’s much kung-fu fun, plus kid-friendly wittiness—though a moment when Po takes a crotch blow and gasps “My tenders!” went over well with the five-year-olds. And despite the fact that one Oprah-esque lesson learned is that Po eats when he’s “upset”, the film makes magic with one balletic kung-fu battle involving chopsticks and dumplings.

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