Kung Fu Panda 3

SPOILER-FREE MOVIE REVIEW

Kung Fu Panda 3 is the third instalment in the much-loved American-Chinese animated martial arts comedy series.

This one covers the story of the Dragon Warrior Po (Jack Black) discovering his Panda heritage, while antagonist Kai (J.K. Simmons) plots some evil against Po and co.

I won't lie to you. Kung Fu Panda 3 was a lot of fun.

A relatively compelling story was matched with some hilarious comedy, which made for some mega laugh-out-loud moments.

As for Kai's evil scheme, however, I felt that they could have done more to make him a more menacing baddie by giving him better motivations for his actions.

Apart from that, the story's simplicity aids the movie's cause to be just a simple and by-the-book piece of entertainment meant for children.

It's also rather fast-paced, wasting no time in getting characters from one place to another. 

Sometimes, this kind of storytelling ends up affecting the whole movie's overall narrative due to the lack of exposition.

For Kung Fu Panda 3, it simply didn't need too much exposition as the characters were all very simple beings, hence the whole movie wasn't entirely affected.

Having said that, it would have been good if they had developed characters like Kai and Li Shan (Bryan Cranston), for they both play key roles in the movie.

Perhaps where they could have included more of this character development would be the starting of the movie, which felt a bit rushed.

I felt that they could have also included more battles in the movie, as the ones that exist in it were good but could be better.

Either that, or maybe have a longer and more entertaining final battle instead of the one we got, which was cute and funny but not exciting enough.

Moving on to the technical aspects of Kung Fu Panda 3, and the majority of it was pretty well done.

To be fair, you can't really go wrong for the visuals in an animated feature - as visuals are what makes the animated movie what it is.

Visually, this movie was pretty sweet-looking. It had nice colour and design to all the sets and locations, and the graphics were very good.

The movie's direction and editing were all up to scratch as well, with the fast-pacing helping the story get to the finish line in a short-but-sweet 95-minute duration.

What I didn't really like was the music by the surprisingly disappointing Hans Zimmer.

Despite the very appropriate use of oriental instruments and sounds for the score, some musical cues and themes become very repetitive - making the effect on scenes appear unimaginative and maybe even a bit lazy.

The returning cast of voice actors as well as the new voices all did a good job in bringing plenty of life to their animated characters.

It was also nice to see some of the returning cast's children like Angelina Jolie's lending their voices to some of the supporting cast.

All in all, Kung Fu Panda 3 was a simple-to-follow, fun, entertaining and enjoyable movie.

Kids will love it, but it's no Zootopia (where I feel both kids and grown-ups can enjoy the movie).

Then again, it wouldn't be fair to compare the two.

I did feel like eating Dim Sum after watching the movie though, so good job, movie for making me hungry.

6.5/10.