I've always had a sneaking admiration for Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda franchise. In a time when CGI animation has become progressively easier and cheaper to produce, these particular films have always seemed defiantly high-budget. Combining a distinctive visual aesthetic with stellar casts and a rare sense of timing, they remain an easy, effortless joy whenever I sit down to watch.
For the benefit of anybody who's been living under a waterfall wrapped in the skin of something dead for the past decade or so, the franchise is set in something approximating feudal China and centres around one Po (Jack Black) a kung fu-obsessed panda raised by noodle bar owner Mr. Ping (James Hong). Fairly early on in the first film, we discover that, chubby and lazy as he is, Po is in fact the Dragon Warrior, a legendary champion destined to... well, no, that's never made entirely clear, but he's definitely destined to do something, probably involving kicking the rear of a snarkier and more traditionally athletic opponent. There's usually a sprinkling of nebulous mysticism involved, which usually tends to amount to you can do anything you want so long as you stay exactly who you are. Do I approve? Not particularly, but there's enough eye and ear candy that it never bothers me all that much.
The third instalment of the series offers more of the same, pretty much. The usual suspects are all present (although I'm not completely sure whether Lucy Liu's Viper ever actually gets a line), joined by Bryan Cranston as Po's biological father and J.K. Simmons as, inevitably, the calmly threatening antagonist who occasionally goes absolutely bloody ballistic. It does, at least, answer one or two key questions - what the Dragon Warrior is, for example, even if it's never made clear precisely what purpose he's supposed to serve barring winning - but I'm pretty sure they'll be able to squeeze out a sequel a few years down the line.
Effortlessly charming, but definitely not one to be thinking about too hard.
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