Kung Fu Panda 4: Fun and frenetic

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for scary images and mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The folks at DreamWorks animation deserve considerable credit; they keep finding clever ways to inject fresh life into a franchise that began as little more than a one-note visual gag.

 

(A panda becoming a kung fu expert? Seriously?)

 

Following a rough ocean voyage, Po and Zhen get their first glimpse of bustling
Juniper City. Po wouldn't be so excited, if he knew what was coming...

Thanks to an inventive script by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger and Darren Lemke — along with sharp, rat-a-tat dialogue delivered with great comic timing by the voice cast — this is Po’s best adventure since his debut, back in 2008.

Directors Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Stine, with an able assist from editor Christopher Knights, ensure that this 94-minute romp never slumps. Indeed, the length feels perfect; all concerned know when to get off the stage, on a crowd-pleasing high.

 

This new film’s premise is perfect: After three death-defying adventures involving world-class villains and amazing martial arts moves, Po (voiced by Jack Black) is told by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) that it’s time to give it a rest. It’s time for Po to assume a greater role as Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace ... which means finding and training a new Dragon Warrior, before he can assume this lofty position.

 

Alas, Po has no interest in giving up his mad kung fu exploits as the current Dragon Master. More to the point, he hasn’t the faintest notion of what his new role might involve. (Spiritual Leader? Sounds like a snooze!) Po also is unwilling to abandon the love-fest adulation emanating from the many animal denizens of the Valley of Peace, particularly since he has concocted so many ways to franchise himself (much to Master Shifu’s disapproval).

 

Adoptive goose dad Mr. Ping (James Hong) and panda birth dad Li (Bryan Cranston) offer encouragement, but they can’t help Po find enlightenment.

 

He’s briefly distracted while catching a cloaked thief who tries to steal valuables from the sacred palace; after a brief skirmish, Po is able to put this nimble, wisecracking intruder — a Corsac fox named Zhen (Awkwafina) — behind bars.

 

(At this point, savvy viewers will have a pretty good idea how this story will conclude, but that doesn’t diminish the delights along the way.)

 

Potential Dragon Master tryouts are interrupted when Po learns that a nearby water buffalo quarry has been terrorized and taken over by raging snow leopard Tai Lung (Ian McShane), Shifu’s former student and arch-nemesis. But wait ... wasn’t Tai Lung soundly defeated back in the first film, and banished to a golden-hued afterlife?

 

All is not what it seems ... and — wouldn’t you know it — Zhen has some answers.

Kung Fu Panda 3: Still kicking up lots of fun

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang

For a franchise that began with a one-joke premise — a roly-poly panda, as a kung fu master? — this series has shown remarkable resilience.

Once Po, left, meets his equally mischievous biological father, the two pandas embark on
a spirited "play date" that almost destroys the venerable jade palace.

Considerable credit obviously goes to scripters Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who’ve been on board since 2008’s first film. They’ve nailed just the right blend of goofy physical comedy and witty dialog (gotta keep the adults entertained!) while including a virtuous moral or two.

The voice talent also is first-rate, starting with the always amusing Jack Black, as the frequently flustered title character; ample assistance comes from supporting players performed by Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen and particularly James Hong. They and others have remained involved from the beginning, and such continuity definitely helps the franchise.

Mostly, though, these films are fun, in the silly, good-natured manner that also has kept the Ice Age series running strong for so long.

As Kung Fu Panda 3 opens, our hero Po’s beloved teacher, Shifu (Hoffman), decides to step down as the local kung fu master. On his way out, Shifu assigns Po the next challenge in his evolution as the local Dragon Warrior: to become the instructor of his warrior colleagues, the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Chan), Mantis (Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross).

The first training session ... leaves much to be desired.

Recriminations and self-doubt are cut short, however, by the arrival of an unexpected visitor: another dumpling-devouring panda, named Li (Bryan Cranston), who bears a striking resemblance to Po ... and claims to be our hero’s actual father. This doesn’t sit well with Mr. Ping (Hong), the goose who runs the village noodle shop and has been Po’s adoptive father, lo these many years.

Quartet: A beautiful noise

Quartet (2012) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, and quite stupidly, for fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.1.13

Music fills almost every frame of Quartet, whether created vicariously by this delightful story’s many talented characters, or delivered via Dario Marianelli’s evocative score, as a means to augment a reflective or dramatic moment.

Although Jean (Maggie Smith, right) initially refuses to become part of the musical
community at Beecham House, even she can't resist the kind, bubbly enthusiasm of
Cissy (Pauline Collins). But Jean also faces other issues, not the least of which is a
fellow resident who happens to be a long-estranged lover.

Dustin Hoffman’s thoroughly engaging directorial debut, working from Ronald Harwood’s adaptation of his own stage play, is another charming — if occasionally bittersweet — reminder that life need not end at 60, 70 or even 80. We’ve seen quite a few such films recently, and while it’s not true that Maggie Smith has been in all of them, she certainly dominates this one.

And that’s no small thing, given the cluster of scene-stealers with whom she shares the screen.

She stars as Jean Horton, a once-celebrated opera vocalist fallen on hard times, whose career is naught but a fading memory; she now must swallow her pride and accept government-supported lodging at Beecham House, a retirement home for musicians. But we don’t meet her right away; Harwood first introduces us to the celebratory warmth and magic of Beecham itself, which echoes morning to night with the rich sounds of pianos, strings, woodwinds and quite a few other orchestral instruments, along with plenty of singing.

Beecham’s residents are a bit more a-flutter than usual, because they’ll soon be performing in the retirement home’s annual fundraiser, timed to celebrate the birthday of famed opera composer Giuseppe Verdi. The event is being helmed by the imperious Cedric Livingston (Michael Gambon), a fussy, fusty martinet who lounges about in day robes and barks commands like a traffic cop.

He’s the only Beecham resident who doesn't make his own music, and thus exemplifies the punch line of that venerable saying: Those who can’t, direct. But nobody seems to mind; Cedric merely clings to the remnants of the career he knows best, as they all do.

Contrasting Cedric is Reginald (Tom Courtenay), a calm, quiet and emotionally withdrawn scholar who gives occasional lessons in opera history to local teenagers. Harwood grants us a glimpse of one such session, and it’s utterly enchanting; we expect poor Reggie to be overwhelmed by these kids, but in fact his gentle but authoritative delivery holds their attention — and ours — as he considers the intriguing similarities between opera and rap.

Barney's Version: Larger than life

Barney's Version (2010) • View trailer for Barney's Version
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang 


At first blush, Barney’s Version walks and talks like a picaresque comedy about a rash, self-centered, hedonistic schlub played to humorous perfection by Paul Giamatti: a 21st century Tom Jones with a somewhat more irascible protagonist.

Great chunks of the first and second act are hilarious, fueled by Giamatti’s priceless slow burns and double-takes. (Honestly, film classes could be constructed around Giamatti’s depth of expression, starting with his narrow-eyed squints of suspicion. One gets the impression he could read the phone book and make it mesmerizing.)

Although the freshly minted groom at his own wedding, Barney (Paul Giamatti)
can't take his eyes off Miriam (Rosamund Pike), one of the guests, after spotting
her across the room. Newly married or not, Barney is about to embark on a
relentless crusade to woo this other woman, who can't quite figure out what
to make of him.

It’s also rather difficult, early on, to like Giamatti’s Barney Panofsky. He’s not exactly cruel, but he’s certainly thoughtless and prone to frequent sins of omission: the sort of guy who’d hover near a concealed TV set on his wedding day, in order to follow a hockey game. We grow ever more exasperated by Barney’s behavior, even as we laugh at his sometimes outrageous shortcomings.

Then ... an odd thing happens.

Suddenly, we’re not laughing any more. Just as suddenly, we feel sorry – profoundly sorry – for this fellow we’ve gotten to understand so well. And that’s a further surprise; director Richard J. Lewis and scripters Michael Konyves and Mordecai Richler – the latter adapting his novel of the same title – sneakily fashion a narrative which, despite its episodic nature, ultimately paints a portrait of a complete person. By the end of this film, we feel like we’ve known Barney for years.

Additionally, due both to final-act revelations and a better appreciation for little things along the way, we realize that Barney – for all his weaknesses and failings – always has been capable of acts of surprising generosity, and kindness of spirit.

Such a tightrope act – in terms of winning and keeping our empathy to such a character – requires extraordinarily precise acting; one false step, and we’d never surmount the resulting disgust and loathing. But Giamatti pulls it off, unerringly, much the way Michael Douglas held our grudging, head-shaking admiration as the misanthropic Grady Tripp in Wonder Boys.

On a superficial level, Barney’s Version is a riff on The Heartbreak Kid, in that poor Barney meets the love of his life on his wedding day ... and it ain’t his wife. But this actually comes a bit later in the narrative, after we’ve gotten to know Barney a bit.

We meet our protagonist in the present day, in the act of hassling his ex-wife’s new husband over the phone: not a terribly sympathetic start. Barney’s professional life, while successful, is somewhat soulless; as the head of a television company he has self-deprecatingly dubbed Totally Unnecessary Productions, he has overseen a wildly successful three-decade soap opera that has generated pots of money. But there’s no such thing as enough prestige in Barney’s world; as a product of Montreal’s predominantly Jewish, working-class Mile End region, he’s stuck with the nagging belief that he needs to “trade up” in every aspect of his life.

Last Chance Harvey: No chance at all

Last Chance Harvey (2008) • View trailer for Last Chance Harvey
2.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and quite stupidly, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.16.09
Buy DVD: Last Chance Harvey • Buy Blu-Ray: Last Chance Harvey [Blu-ray]


This is roughly half a movie … and not a very satisfying one, at that.

Actually, Last Chance Harvey feels more like a work in progress: an intimate stage play still being shaped, and clearly missing continuity and closure.

Having been persuaded by new friend Kate (Emma Thompson) to attend the
reception that follows his daughter's wedding — despite not being allowed to
walk her down the aisle — the nervous and far too unassuming Harvey (Dustin
Hoffman) wonders how to handle the fact that his ex-wife's new husband keeps
hogging the microphone.

Stars Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson give it their all, but writer/director Joel Hopkins' script is insubstantial, predictable, contrived, mawkishly sentimental and guilty of dramatic theft; one plot point is "borrowed," in all relevant ways, from 1957's An Affair to Remember (perhaps best remembered these days for the way it's referenced in Sleepless in Seattle).

Mostly, though, the story here just isn't very interesting. Watching Hoffman and Thompson interact as lonely singles is engaging; neither is capable of a bad performance, and their acting nuances — Hoffman's too-quick, nervous smile; Thompson's wary eyes, which bespeak repeated disappointment — certainly establish engaging characters capable of holding our attention.

But this film gives them very little to do, and the script lacks any of the tension or dramatic arcs that normally would hold our attention. The result, particularly in the wake of a frustratingly abrupt conclusion, looks more like an acting exercise: something disconnected from actual narrative, and existing solely as a classroom experience.

New York-based professional musician Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is on the verge of losing his dead-end job as a composer of TV commercial jingles; too much of what used to be craft has been farmed out to computer-based scores, and our hero's boss (Richard Schiff) warns that his current pending gig could be the last one.

Obviously unsettled, Harvey nonetheless hops a plane and crosses the pond to London, where his daughter — Liane Balaban, as Susan — is getting married. For reasons never really made clear, Harvey is almost completely estranged from not only Susan, but his ex-wife (Kathy Baker) and all their former friends.

Indeed, Harvey is booked into a hotel by himself, while the rest of the wedding party is lodged together elsewhere … an outrageously cruel act — and wholly unwarranted, given this film's absence of justification — that the mugwumpish Harvey accepts philosophically. Worse yet, Susan waits until the rehearsal dinner, that evening, to tell Harvey that she has "bumped" him by asking her stepfather (James Brolin) to walk her down the aisle.

And we're supposed to view Susan as anything approaching a sympathetic character?

Rubbish.

The Tale of Despereaux: Sizable odds

The Tale of Despereaux (2008) • View trailer for The Tale of Despereaux
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: G, despite some quite grim sequences
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.19.08
Buy DVD: The Tale of Despereaux • Buy Blu-Ray: The Tale of Despereaux [Blu-ray]

Directors Sam Fell and Rob Stevenhagen's adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's beloved book, The Tale of Despereaux, is a gorgeous visual experience: a sumptuous animated fable — in a wholly unique style, reminiscent of Flemish painters such as Vermeer and Brueghel — that employs an impeccably selected voice cast to deliver a clever fairy tale filled with colorful characters, and punctuated by several gently delivered morals.

The diminutive Despereaux, right, who always behaves like a perfect gentleman,
breaks all the rules of his Mouse World homeland when he dares speak to the
Princess Pea, center. Their lives subsequently take several unexpected — and
dangerous — turns, thanks to the arrival of Roscuro, a rat visiting from
another land.

It's also deliberately paced to the point of being sluggish, and — if a recent, family-laden Sacramento preview audience is any indication — a total snooze to the younger viewers who represent the film's target audience.

I'm all for respecting old-fashioned storytelling techniques, but not to the point of boring people. Scripters Gary Ross, Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi are to be commended for a smart, heartfelt screenplay that avoids the vibrant, joke-laden style that characterizes (for example) a Pixar animated film; such a "busy" approach would not have suited DiCamillo's delicate tale.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers may have gone too far in the other direction. Their handling of Despereaux comes complete with Sigourney Weaver's off-camera narration, intentionally employed to give the strong sense that we're all snuggled under the covers and listening to a beloved parent read the story aloud to us.

Not a bad approach, but the pacing is just ... well ... off.

Those not familiar with the book can be forgiven for wondering why it takes so long to even meet our hero; and even after he's introduced, he seems little more than a bit player in his own story. It's a tragic irony: Our little mouse protagonist — whose diminutive size, DiCamillo's book assures its readers, in no way diminishes his courage and fortitude — is utterly overwhelmed by nearly a dozen more interesting supporting characters.

And a lot of rats.

That's also a problem.

It wasn't an issue in 2003, when DeCamillo's book came out, but since then the animated, rat-oriented Flushed Away and Pixar's Ratatouille have reached movie screens, and one can't help comparing the rats-and-cooking focus of Despereaux with the latter.

Reaching back a bit further, I also note that the primary ratty villain of Despereaux — voiced by Ciaran Hinds — looks, sounds and acts a lot like Vincent Price's evil Ratigan in 1986's The Great Mouse Detective.

Despite what you may have heard, imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery. It's just ... disappointing.

Kung Fu Panda: Panda-monium

Kung Fu Panda (2008) • View trailer for Kung Fu Panda
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, and quite pointlessly, for harmless martial-arts mayhem
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.6.08
Buy DVD: Kung Fu Panda • Buy Blu-Ray: Kung Fu Panda (Two Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

The concept is too silly for words, which is precisely the point.

You can't even glance at Po, the corpulent hero of Kung Fu Panda, without laughing.

Shifu (right), the kung fu master, can't imagine how he could ever transform the
corpulent Po into a martial-arts fighting machine ... until an epiphany strikes:
The oversized panda will do anything for food ... and that includes fighting
with impressive skill.

In lesser hands, this film might have gone no further than childish farce. But credit a stable of writers — Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger — for a script that cleverly blends ancient Chinese tradition with American geek culture, and credit directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne for maintaining a snappy pace. (So nice to see a film that gets on the stage, tells its story in an economical 92 minutes, and then gets off.)

Mostly, though, this film owes its success to its gorgeous animation and sublime voice acting.

I mean, really: Dustin Hoffman as Shifu, an itty-bitty critter that happens to be a kung fu master?

The only thing funnier than that is the notion that Oogway, Shifu's master — and the apparent inventor of kung fu — is an ancient, slow-moving tortoise.

Hoffman is notorious for his adherence to "method"; I fondly recall Laurence Olivier's comment, during the filming of Marathon Man, when Hoffman prepared for a particular scene — one that called for his character to look whipped because he hadn't slept for days — by actually not sleeping for two days.

"My dear boy," Olivier is reported to have said, "why don't you just try acting?"

I can't imagine what Hoffman might have done to prepare for this role, but the effort clearly paid off. More crucially, the animators give Shifu's face a wealth of expressions that perfectly match Hoffman's palpable intensity. That all this should emerge in so diminutive a character ... well, that's just icing on the cake.

(Actually, trying to determine Shifu's species is surprisingly difficult in a film where all the other creatures are so easy to identify. He looks like a tiny cross between a possum and a raccoon. Hoffman has claimed, during interviews, that he's "a rare small red panda." Which I guess makes sense.)

The setting is ancient China, more or less, although the country is occupied not by people, but by animals. Ordinary citizens are the more vulnerable forest and barnyard creatures: bunnies, pigs and various birds. Po, the only panda in sight, sticks out like a sore thumb ... all the more because he seems to have been "adopted," at some point in the distant past, by his fussy father, a goose named Mr. Ping (James Hong).

Dad's sole hope in life is that his son will embrace the family calling and become a famous noodle chef.