If there is one movie to watch in 3D, it’s this one.
It is the only way to watch it, production was conceived around it and it truly shows. It’s not only an animation marvel, it’s literally piece of art. There were scenes I wished the director held the camera pan just a couple seconds longer just so you could take in the visuals that much more. There is depth of field, but more than that, this movie shows 3D working properly with the effect of layers. The last movie I remember doing this, was Avatar. Since then we’ve had movies with ‘cool’ scenes but never anything that ever warrants the use of 3D. The last real memorable 3D scene I can recall since Avatar was the “incinerator moment” in Toy Story 3, that image has never left my mind. Priest recently with the ash effect somewhat leaves an impression but in retrospect it’s still very fleeting. There are times where 3D add value and effects, like that of Priest. Then we get the post-processed crap, like The Last Airbender. However moving forward it’s clear that wanting to use the technology is one thing and actually crafting a film and it’s storyline with 3D as intended for use is a whole other thing.
Kung Fu Panda 2 does the latter.
What I enjoyed most about this film is it went beyond the initial city the first movie introduced us to. It showed the ‘world’ of Kung Fu Panda and went beyond the city’s borders and introduced more. It allowed for not only a visual presentation but a journey in the film as you traveled along with the characters. The characters, Po and the Furious Five have continued on with their battles against evil and it’s told not in a retrospect or flashback. The impression is simply given. Po is the Dragon Warrior and he is on his way onto becoming a master of Kung Fu. It’s a nice storyline subplot which also plays a slight homage to old martial arts films themselves. This is another aspect that the film successfully achieves, it’s definitely become it’s own entity, it’s own world and it’s own story. It takes on minute cultural references and influences. If you like the characters and the adventures it just leaves you wanting more. There are subtleties in this movie that you can tell have been planned. It’s an almost self contained movie, but branches off as becoming one of those Kung Fu stories of legend like Po references to himself. Maybe the reason is, there is a much bigger picture in the works, an overarching story which is developing in the six movies planned for this franchise. So we’ll see what the future holds and hopefully the films continued success allows us to see Dreamworks finish what they want to do.
