MOVIE REVIEWS: KUNG FU PANDA II

For the most part, critics are not quite so enchanted with the Kung Fu Panda sequel as they were with the original. Nevertheless, most of them reach the same conclusion that Philadelphia Inquirer critic Steven Rea does in the Philadelphia Inquirer: It’s “still more than a cut above the usual family fare.” This is a “kinder, gentler” Panda, Stephen Cole observes in the Toronto Globe and Mail, fine for the little ones, but it “will surely try the patience of older children and fun-seeking parents,” he writes. Nevertheless, he concedes some of the animation is “glorious to behold.” Indeed, Betsy Sharkey remarks in the Los Angeles Times that “this is the first movie in a long time that you won’t mind paying for the glasses because what’s on the screen is multidimensional magic.” Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, while giving the film only a so-so review, nevertheless is also impressed with the 3D animation, writing that it “uses 3-D technology with flair and restraint, adding pop to the action sequences and depth to the landscapes, which evoke an ancient China spun out of candy.” Liz Braun in the Toronto Sun disagrees with those who say older viewers will find the film tedious. She thinks they’ll get — you’ll excuse the expression — a kick out of it. “Parents tired of noise and frantic nonsense filling in for plot and character,” she writes, “should find this movie a breath of fresh air.” On the other hand, not at all impressed by any of it is Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle who finds the story “plain bad,” the choreography of the battle scenes “without wit,” and as for the 3D: “There is not a single moment in which the three dimensions are taken into special account and used in an imaginative way.”