The laughs definitely dominate the action this time. I was hoping it would be more like the first one. I didn't want a silly KUNG FU PANDA 2, loaded with jokes. I guess my expectations may have been too high. There are things that really work: like Po's relationship with his father (James Hong), Po learning about his past, and the cliffhanger ending was a nice touch. If I didn't see the first one, I probably would have liked this much more. But that's because the first one was so awesome. I was just underwhelmed and disappointed. He even had a few moments of humor, which didn't quite work. The biggest surprise was that Gary Oldman was just "okay" as the baddie. Dustin Hoffman is still my favorite character, though he's in it far less. The one-liners should be only left to Po. But here they both have a few chances to make one-liners that seem inappropriate for martial arts masters to make. I was happy that David Cross and Seth Rogen didn't let loose in the original, as they actually seemed to play characters.
The supporting voice cast got to do a bit more this time too. Which worked some of the time, and was annoying the rest of the time.
Jack Black seemed to do alot more ad-libbing this time around. I kept waiting for a thrilling scene like one of those again, but I didn't get it. My two favorite scenes in the first one was the jailbreak scene, and the confrontation on the bridge between the villain and the Furious Five. I didn't think throwing more jokes in this one was the answer to make a successful sequel. RIO had several silly moments, but it fit the story's tone. That's not to say I don't enjoy silly humor, but it should fit within the story. Just when I thought there was going to be a real "bad ass" moment, Po does something really silly, like screaming with his hand on fire, which made the kids laugh, but ruined the potentially cool moment. There is at least twice as much humor now, and it kind of gets in the way of the action. In this one, the jokes get first billing. The strength of the first one was that they treated the action scenes very seriously. Unfortunately, it's not quite as bad ass as the original. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I was hoping that the rest of the film was going to be like this. The first action scene has some great moments and at times even felt like an old school Jackie Chan movie, as it mixed humor with the martial arts. The animation looks fantastic, and the 3D wasn't terrible. I loved the prologue, as it really got my blood pumping for the final confrontation. Only then will he be able to defeat Lord Shen. But even though Po is the Dragon Warrior, he still has much to learn, like the art of eternal peace. Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) tells Po of this and the Five are off on an adventure. Lord Shen also has a powerful cannon that threatens to destroy the countryside. He also destroyed all of the pandas when a prophecy told him that he would be defeated by a Panda. During a clever 2D animated prologue, we learn about the evil Peacock Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), who wants revenge. They are successful at cleaning up the streets of Asia, that is until a new threat is introduced. Po (Jack Black) is now the Dragon Warrior who leads the Furious Five. This one picks up where the first one left off.
I love martial arts, and I was tickled at how the original treated Kung-Fu with respect. This is one of my most anticipated movies of the summer. But instead, it was an inspiring action packed adventure, with a bit of humor laced throughout. I was worried that Jack Black was going to ad-lib too much and feature tons of inappropriate humor, much like the highly overrated SHREK films. I was a big fan of the first one, which really surprised me.
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