‘Kung Fu Panda 4’: The energy’s not yet extinct
There’s a scene in “Kung Fu Panda 4” that resonates with anyone who’s struggled to meditate. The heroic panda, Po (Jack Black), plops under a blossoming peach tree, relaxes his paws and attempts to concentrate on a mantra. “Inner peace, inner peace,” he chants, but his mind can’t stay still. “Inner peace. Dinner please. Dinner with peas. In a sesame-soy glaze.” Spell broken, Po pads off having summed up this frantic sequel in, well, a pea. It aspires to be Taoism for tykes, but it’s just too fidgety.
The Kung Fu Panda films are like a neon sign of a yin and yang, a fragile balance of philosophy and fat jokes. In the beginning, Black’s Po was a klutz who trained himself to earn the title of Dragon Warrior, a name given to his region’s greatest martial artist. The big idea was that if a panda could high-kick, the rest of us could do anything. But the franchise is turning 16, and the average wild panda’s life span is only 20 years. Now Po’s guide, Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), has promoted the panda into a spiritual leader, prodding him beyond his comfort zone. No more can Po while away his days punching dudes and eating dumplings. He must, against his will, hand over the Dragon Warrior title to someone else – a status shift that triggers him to yelp his catchphrase: “But where’s the skadoosh?!” (Related: Later this year when the last stragglers in the Atlanta zoo return to China, Americans will be asking, “Where’s the pandas?”)
Jack Black has a mystical hold on children. I’ve seen kids react to him like the second coming of Beatlemania, even ones who weren’t born the last time he voiced this slapstick bear on the big screen in 2016. Black could start his own kindergarten cult, if he were so inclined. But new-tothe-series directors Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Ma Stine seem less confident than the previous filmmakers that Zen sections of their screenplay (by returning writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger and franchise first-timer Darren Lemke) can keep the youths entertained. The pacing is frenetic, with one fight scene spilling over into the next and timeouts no bigger than the space between dominoes.
Two and one-half stars. Rated PG. At theaters. Martial arts action and mild violence, scary images, and some mild rude humor. 94 minutes.