{"id":921,"date":"2011-05-25T18:13:57","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T01:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dvdpinson.com\/?p=921"},"modified":"2011-05-25T18:13:57","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T01:13:57","slug":"kung-fu-panda-2-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=921","title":{"rendered":"Kung Fu Panda 2 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/24_0010_A-merged1111.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-922\" title=\"24_0010_A--(merged)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/24_0010_A-merged1111.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"47\" height=\"43\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Kung Fu Panda 2<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k2111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-924\" title=\"k2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k211-300x126.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"126\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag --><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/apis.google.com\/js\/plusone.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><!-- Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render --><br \/>\n<g:plusone><\/g:plusone><\/p>\n<p>Jack Black makes a wonderful cartoon character. With his outlandish persona and ability to deliver lines of dialogue with a grandeur that matches his amplitude, it could be argued that Black is more suited for animation than boring, old live action. His work as Po in \u201cKung Fu Panda\u201d is the only exhibit needed to establish this as fact. The bear matches Black\u2019s attitude and humor with one important improvement over his real world counterpart: Po knows Kung Fu. Albeit cartoon Kung Fu in a make believe world but he \u201cbrings the thunder\u201d nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k11111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-925\" title=\"k1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k11111.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"64\" \/><\/a>We meet up with Po who has fully embraced the whole \u201cI\u2019m the Dragon Warrior\u201d thing that served as the main motive for the original film. He spends his days being revered like a celebrity in his small village, fighting villainous villains along side the Furious Five (not to be confused with \u201cFast Five\u201d or Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five). In between the \u201cskadooshing,\u201d Po takes time to learn powerful Zen lessons from his tiny master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), who teaches him the importance of inner-peace and other heady notions.<\/p>\n<p>This time around the main miscreant Po must make battle against is a peacock named Lord Shen (a unrecognizable Gary Oldman). That\u2019s right, a peacock.\u00a0 You don\u2019t see a peacock and think \u201cBadass?\u201d\u00a0 Well, Lord Shen will make you do an about-face on that conception. The foul fowl (sorry) possesses an uncontainable weapon that threatens the very foundation of Kung Fu itself. Po and The Five travel across China to do battle and the panda discovers that he and Shen share a secret from his past that he\u2019s been running from all of his life.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k41111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-927\" title=\"k4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k41111.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"80\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first \u201cKung Fu Panda\u201d was a milestone production for Dreamworks Animation. Up until the film\u2019s release, the production company\u2019s claim to acclaim was the \u201cShrek\u201d films that relied heavily on (mildly) crude humor and massive amounts of pop culture references that made the films timely yet fleeting. \u201cPanda\u201d changed that, telling a good story that was just plain funny without relying on short lived gimmicks. It was the film that allowed the company to grow up and, while they still churn out some sophomoric entertainment (\u201cShrek Forever After\u201d and the upcoming \u201cPuss in Boots\u201d), Dreamworks can also deliver solid films like \u201cHow to Train Your Dragon\u201d. Add \u201cKung Fu Panda 2\u201d to their list of solid films.<\/p>\n<p>This time around benefits from the audience already knowing the surroundings and characters so we can get down to the good stuff: Flying paws of Fury! The storytelling is brisk and the action exhilarating. \u201cKung Fu Panda 2\u201d is the first film in a long while that actually benefits from the 3-D process and much of the film has great depth that helps bring the world to life. Everything\u00a0 is beautifully detailed and an entire viewing could be spent just looking at the buildings and peripheral characters\u00a0 that fill the background.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k3111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-928\" title=\"k3\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/k311-300x111.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"111\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Black and Angelina Jolie (who stars as Tigress) do stellar work and there are some notable newcomers; namely, Danny McBride as a wolf baddie who seems a little too preoccupied with Po\u2019s plushness and Jean Claude Van Damme who doesn\u2019t do much with his Master Croc character but its pretty cool he\u2019s in it all the same.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKung Fu Panda 2\u201d is most notable for its use of physical humor. Po trips and blunders his way through the film to the extent that rivals some classic silent movie comedies. In the Summer of Sequels, mark this one up as a welcomed return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kung Fu Panda 2 Jack Black makes a wonderful cartoon character. With his outlandish persona and ability to deliver lines of dialogue with a grandeur that matches his amplitude, it could be argued that Black is more suited for animation than boring, old live action. His work as Po in \u201cKung Fu Panda\u201d is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1429,5180,6272,8122,10085,11939,16189,18346],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-angelina-jolie","tag-danny-mcbride","tag-dreamworks-animation","tag-gary-oldman","tag-jack-black","tag-kung-fu-panda-2","tag-po-the-panda","tag-shrek"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}