Skip to main content

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

 

Kung Fu Panda 4 is the fourth film in the Kung Fu Panda series.

Director Mike Mitchell takes the reigns this time around. He had done Shrek Forever After, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Duece Bigalow: Male Gigolo. These films suggest why this film suffered but it's also because of the writers this time. I blame the political horn-shoeing and poor narrative plot points on Darren Kemke who failed with the Goosebumps franchise, Shazam!, and most notably Gemini Man.

While I have enjoyed Jack Black's earlier films he has been phoning it in lately and has become a caricature of himself. Awkwafina does her best to bring, what little this movie has to offer, towards a better place. While Viola Davis does a good job as The Chameleon her poorly-written villain leaves her little to do. No female villain can just be evil they have to be misunderstood.

This is the worst Kung Fu Panda hands down but still beats some of this year's stinkers. Result: C-


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Colony (2026)

Colony is written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho , the director behind the cult classic Train to Busan . While Train to Busan has become the more celebrated film, Colony shows how much Yeon has improved as both a writer and a director. The story is stronger, the filmmaking feels more confident, and the way he builds the world gives the movie more substance than I expected going in. Jun Ji-hyun is the clear standout of the cast. She does a fantastic job conveying emotion through subtle movements and expressions rather than relying on exaggerated acting. That is not surprising considering she is one of South Korea's best actresses, but she still manages to make the character feel grounded and believable. She carries much of the emotional weight of the film. I did not recognize many of the other actors, and unfortunately, none of them really stood out enough to make much of an impression. That is not necessarily a knock against the cast as much as it is a testament to how much Jun ...

The Stunt Driver (2026)

The Stunt Driver feels more like a passion project than a comedy or even a drama. There is enough here to get me into the theater, but not enough to keep me from checking the time during its 99-minute runtime. Even at that length, the movie feels like it is constantly waiting for the big jump to happen instead of actually giving us something interesting along the way. Writer/director Michael Dowse is clearly a Canadian patriot, but he needs to remember that most of his audience isn't Canadian. There is nothing wrong with being proud of where you come from, but the movie spends so much time leaning into that pride that it becomes difficult for anyone outside of Canada to connect with it. Goon worked because it had a much better script. The Stunt Driver needed to be written by someone who actually understands comedy and knows how to build jokes around the characters instead of simply expecting the premise to carry the movie. Jay Baruchel does a decent job in the lead, but he isn...

Digger (2026)

Digger is directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and stars Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell. Much like his name, there is a lot of symbolism and meaning packed into the film, along with plenty of references that brought a smile to my face. I went into this expecting it to be pretentious or outright bad because that was the prevailing opinion online before general audiences had even had a chance to see it. Anyone calling this movie pretentious clearly has not seen The Death of Robin Hood or Die My Love . Die My Love was so pretentious that my wife actually begged me to leave the theater, and I had to finish it another day. Digger , on the other hand, actually understands the difference between being ambitious and simply being self-important. Tom Cruise is great as Digger Rockwell, giving the character exactly the kind of larger-than-life personality the movie needs. There is so much going on beneath the surface that I found myself constantly looking for the symbolism and references hidden...