"Kung Fu Panda": Fuzzy outsider, kicking his way toward his dream

A scene from Kung Fu Panda

At once fuzzy-wuzzy and industrial strength, the tacky-sounding "Kung Fu Panda" is high concept with a heart. Even better, this animated feature from DreamWorks is so consistently diverting and visually arresting that it succeeds in transcending its storybook clichés.
The panda of the title is Po, a generously proportioned mound of roly-poly black-and-white fun voiced with gratifying restraint by Jack Black. You know the next turn in the road as well as any Disney-and-Pixar-weaned 7-year-old: Po is different, Po has a dream, Po has to struggle and so forth. Po also has a loving father, naturally (and no mother, predictably), Mr. Ping (James Hong), who runs a noodle shop that he hopes his son will take over one day. Po's unlikely passion for kung fu intervenes, leading him out of the noodle shop and into the metaphoric hot pot, whereupon he kicks, grunts and groans toward his destiny amid the usual clutter of colourful sidekicks and one nasty foe (Ian McShane).
For an ostensible outsider, Po conforms very much to familiar animated-movie type. Like Nemo and the rest of his cartoon brethren, he needs to embark on the hero's journey, which he does with help from a miscellany of pals voiced by the usual A- and B-listers. Among those nudging and guiding Po is Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim), an ancient turtle with a mellifluous voice and long, liquid neck who invented kung fu and now serves as the spiritual adviser (think Yoda) to an elite squad, including a kung fu master, the moustachioed red panda Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), and his students, the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Viper (Lucy Liu), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Crane (David Cross) and Mantis (Seth Rogen).
The screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger is ho-hum without being insulting, a grab bag of gentle jokes, sage lectures, helpful lessons and kicky fights. There is none of the self-conscious knowing that characterises the Pixar factory, which makes the whole thing seem either winningly innocent or terribly cynical, depending on your mood and worldview. The bottom line of Pixar's "Incredibles" can be difficult to argue with -- namely, if everybody is special, no one is -- but the heroic outsider has his own durable appeal, particularly if he's a great big bouncing ball of fat and fuzz.
That outsider is even more irresistible when nestled amid so much lovingly created animation, both computer generated and hand drawn. The main story, executed via 3-D animation and directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, fluidly integrates gorgeous, impressionistic flourishes with the kind of hyper-real details one has come to expect from computer-generated imagery: photorealistically textured stone steps, for instance, and fur so invitingly tactile you want to run your fingers through it. One of the pleasures of "Kung Fu Panda" is that instead of trying to mimic the entirety of the world as it exists, it uses the touch of the real. The character designs may be anatomically correct, but they're cartoons from whisker to tail.
Source: The New York Times