—BECAUSE KUNG FU PANDA 4 KILLED MY GRANDMA, OKAY?
To preface,
I watched this movie and I'm genuinely tweaking right now so I had to write down a very brief (lie) criticism on this film — which you should boycott, by the way.
Starting with the things I liked, before briefing my primary points of criticism:
Po's Character Regression
I'd also yap about Lord Shen and the death of the art style and the entire narrative and pacing and use of the staff of wisdom but my therapist says being such a hater is 'unhealthy' or something.
My heart is full of hatred.
SPOILERS for the entirety KFP4 for the 2 people who care.
KFP4 undermines and ignores the previous three movies — Unwriting character developments, outright removing the Furious Five, straying from the character design philosophies and is completely inconsistent with the established lore.
Things I Liked About Kung Fu Panda 4
The Chameleon's character design
Visual gag in the Tavern where Po uses a recently thrown axe as a hat rack (made me laugh)
so cute! the little heart!
Po, as established in the previous movies, is confident in his abilities and identity — he’s learnt inner peace, he’s matured as a character.
However, in KFP4, his character has completely regressed.
He’s immature again (such as KFP1, possibly worse) and says verbatim, “only knows kicking butt and taking names” — UNLEARNING inner peace and insisting that “…being the Dragon Warrior is all I know.”
It’s childish, and sort of Hotel Transylvania-esque.
Which isn’t helped by the comedy, the dialogue — a large chunk of which are jokes in the style of:
Master Shifu says something philosophical
Po quips off of it / doesn’t get it (i.e. Whoa!! beat I don’t know what that means.)
Oh, it’s great, yeah, very tolerable. Po’s shenanigans are normally reeled in by the presence of the Furious Five who are generally more serious in nature, creating a much needed balance in the dynamic — So without them, it’s just Po becoming increasingly obnoxious and insufferable with every consecutive quip throughout the screenplay.
Po and Zhen — Character Dynamics
[No more graphics sorry I'm too angry]
As if it wasn’t obvious that Zhen was going to be the next Dragon Warrior the second she was introduced.
Zhen, as a character, has no depth besides being a quippy thief. She quips, she steals.
This character has no motives — it can be assumed that the writers intended on a ‘change of heart’ thing, but she isn’t established as evil, her working for the Chameleon is written as a (albeit poor) twist reveal.
By which point, her taking either side wouldn’t make sense, given that she has shown no loyalty or attachment to either Po nor the Chameleon.
The movie artificially strengthens their bond by having Zhen start opening up about her backstory out of nowhere for no reason but they have done nothing to grow closer to each other.
Small tangent, her backstory is exactly what you’d expect it to be with no subversions or even emotional weight. Woe is me I was so small and hungry I had to steal to survive. Glossed over in about a minute.
The majority of the dialogue between Zhen and Po is spoken exposition — explaining how powerful and badass the Chameleon is, explaining how ‘we have to go here to do that’ and ‘this place was cool until the Chameleon did such and such’, and the rest of their time together is spent engaging in filler chase sequences and fight scenes.
This is where it becomes apparent that the movie relies heavily on telling rather than showing —
She is the weakest villain by far, not only in universe but as a written character; which is particularly disheartening because I genuinely adore her character design and feel as though a shapeshifting character has great potential.
The movie artificially inflates her power by insisting through exposition that this is the most capable antagonist thus far (lie).
The audience is TOLD by Zhen and various restaurant patrons that the Chameleon is a powerful shapeshifting sorceress and that she 'dominates the city' whilst the film does nothing to showcase this.
'Dominating the city' meaning letting her henchpeople run amock and bully the civilians just like Lord Shen's wolves in KFP2... uninspired.
I just realised they didn't even give her a NAME what the FUCK is going on
She describes HERSELF as ruthless, clever and unsentimental when comparing Zhen to herself.
She says HERSELF that she’s “Stronger than every opponent you’ve ever faced.”
Let’s see what vile reprehensible things she’s done, shall we?
Gently push someone down some stairs
Her first appearance is through Zhen’s exposition, as opposed to the dramatic and memorable entrances of the previous villains. Her motives or character aren’t established until the final third of the film. She doesn’t even FIGHT anybody until the final third of the film; and even then, her fight sequences are uninspired and she never really poses a real threat. (She goes down in two hits.)
That being said, WE CAN STILL SAVE HER GUYS WE CAN STILL GET HER OUTTA THERE I'M COMING FOR YOU CHAMELEON I'M GONNA DRAFT YOU A PROPER BACKSTORY AND MOTIVE AND YOU'RE GONNA BE THE MOST THREATENING VILLAIN THUS FAR
There's a scene after the climax of the film where all the kung fu masters and previous villains from the spirit realm bow to Po. I'm not going to provide my thoughts on this because I fear I may burst a blood vessel. Good day!
To put it simply, Kung Fu Panda 4 was my Megamind 2.
The film rejects its predecessors in every way. It really feels as though they brought in somebody with no prior knowledge of the franchise to direct the movie.
It's a film that relies heavily on telling rather than showing — banking on the previous three movies to carry it through the box office.
It's just really disheartening to see studio execs turn one of the best franchises into a safe sequel cash grab and regress every character's development.
Nevertheless. I do adore the chameleon's character design so I might do my own take on her character.
As far as I'm concerned, there is no fairy godmother, there is no tooth fairy, and there is no kung fu panda 4.
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