Ska-doosh once again. I do believe the official word origin of “skadoosh” is Shakespearian. One of his lesser known works. Don’t bother fact checking that. Google only knows the popular ones. But, because someone needs money, Kung Fu Panda 4 is here, po is back, and the budget has been trimmed. Po’s teammates, the furious voice cast of Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, and David Cross are nowhere to be found. Is that a good thing?
First up, this has audio description on Peacock. Oddly, the only entry in the franchise that currently resides on the service with AD. I did rewatch the first three films to get ready, as I own two of them it was pretty easy, but none had audio description. So, we’ll come back around to those at the end.
Kung Fu Panda 4 is a full circle moment, where Po’s now having to choose the next Dragon Warrior so he can train them, and Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) is sounding much older, and feasibly wouldn’t return for a fifth installment. But, Jack Black as po has all the energy and charm he’s always had, which is what makes this film work. The villain here is The Chameleon (Viola Davis), a shifty individual who keeps stealing Kung fu, even from the baddies Po faces in the first three films. The only way Po has a shot at winning, because his team is gone, is by working with an equally shifty fox (Awkwafina) who operates outside Po’s usual honor code as a Dragon Warrior.
what makes this film even more adorable is that Po now has two dads. Y’all got attacked by woke Po in the middle of the night. True ninja style. It’s actually cute and hilarious to see his two dads, one of which he just picked up in the third movie, and they feel the need to protect their son, and also cook delicious food for him… if they can ever catch up to him. it is a delightful subplot that I’m sure someone out there raged about, despite that these two are not a couple, and lots of real people have an adopted father and are later reunited with their birth parents at some point. It’s brilliant, and the best kind of representation for those in that predicament. Even a kid with a dad and also a stepfather can easily see themselves in Po.
Awkwafina does her usual thing. She is someone that seems like a natural choice for an animated feature, and she delivers exactly what you would think. But Viola Davis (Yes Ma’am) is indulging herself. Anyone who saw the disappointing Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes knows that Davis secretly loves to ham it up and grandstand as a villain, and she’s all over this.
My biggest problem is the obvious direction the film is headed. Po needs to choose a successor, and there’s really only this fox played by Awkwafina. This is finally the first film since the original where the Furious ones wouldn’t have felt like they were just hanging out, but actually contributing. Tigress has in every film been referred to as a badass worthy of being the dragon warrior. Po tries to give it to her. He defers to her a lot. The fact that this series doesn’t end with Tigress being named is kinda baffling. The ending of this should be Po taking over for Shifu, tigress becoming the Dragon Warrior, and Awkwafina’s fox joining the furious in Tigress’s place. That’s the ending that makes sense for the franchise. This just doesn’t match the direction of the franchise.
The audio description does a really nice job with all the various Kung fu in the film, as well as the more magical elements revolving around the Chameleon and her transformations. The tone is good for a kids film,and I need to figure out how to disable auto play on Peacock so I can get credits.
Below, II’m giving you grades for all the films. While the first three I did rewatch without audio description, I had seen all of them previously. I would say any film in this franchise, due to the action sequences is unwatchable. But, here are the grades for the whole franchise, based on what I remember.
Final Grades:
Kung Fu Panda: A-
Kung Fu panda 2- B
Kung Fu Panda 3: B-
Kung Fu Panda 4- B-
