True to its title, the feature cartoon Kung Fu Panda is an improbable combination of cute-animal comedy and martial-arts farce with a saggy middle and an overall cuddly kapow. Past a superb opening, it takes a while for Kung Fu Panda to achieve a full head of steam, within and without the noodle shop. When it does, it improves on a showbiz dictum. This movie leaves 'em laughing - and gasping.
The plot puts an underdog parable into a bearskin. What energizes it is the wacky chemistry between Jack Black as a jolly black-and-white panda and Dustin Hoffman as his stern red panda mentor. Black's panda is named Po, presumably after Keye Luke's Master Po in the old Kung Fu TV show. But it takes this Po an entire movie to achieve his master status. Reared to be a noodle-maker, he leaps into the chop-socky big leagues when he accidentally wins a competition to find the Dragon Warrior destined to vanquish the evil snow leopard Tai Lung (Ian McShane).
The movie achieves its creative pinnacle right at the start. Po, a supreme fighter only in his dreams, fantasizes about taking on a saloon-full of plug-uglies and winning the admiration of his idols, the Furious Five: Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross). In bold 2D animation resembling imagery ripped from street posters, this introductory sequence presents Po as an upside-down tornado (funnel at the bottom), whirling into action against opponents who at their eeriest are like animated shadow puppets. As Po offers a running commentary on his own greatness, the sequence mixes hilarity with braggadocio and braces audiences for comic wonderments to come.
But as soon as Po's father, Mr. Ping (James Hong), rouses his son to work, the movie becomes a more conventional if still tasty kettle of ramen - another digitally animated follow-your-dream fable, this time about Po eventually seizing the chance to move from kung fu fan to kung fu champion. When the real Furious Five disdain this upstart, who is more conscious than they are of his shortcomings, the movie nearly grinds to a halt.
It's piquant to see Crane moving his wings like lethal Oriental fans as he duels with the kick-boxing Tigress (in her gym-club leg wraps) atop an overturned jade turtle shell. (Po chooses to work out with an innocuous dummy that turns out to be a doorstop.) And the animators do themselves proud with the looks of the angry-eyed, sharp-clawed Mantis, who wouldn't be caught dead praying, the surprisingly seductive Viper (she's a different kind of snake charmer), and loose, jocular, yet don't tread-on-my-tale Monkey.
