“Kung Fu Panda 4”- Series installment a disappointment, but far from a total waste of time

I really hold the “Kung Fu Panda” film series in high esteem and personally see them as up there with the likes of “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” etc, and I love Jack Black in general. So this is one of those movies that, despite hearing mixed  opinions about it, I was still excited to see.

The story sees Po being told he will no longer be the dragon warrior and must find a successor as he’s being elevated to a spiritual leader of some sort. But, Tai Lung is back. This is a nitpick I have with the movie. I really wish they could explain how characters can  come back from the spirit world. Instead of just doing it, there should have been an explanation of some sort.

Po decides to challenge Tai Lung to have one last adventure as dragon warrior before his retirement. He teams up with a sly fox played by Awkwafina, who tells him that Tai Lung may be in fact the Chameleon, a shapeshifter who has a diabolical plot to harness the energy of all the previous villains from the spirit world to make her unstoppable in her kung fu. 

One element in particular, which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it, really drew me into the film. I wish that one element could have been delved into a lot more, along with another certain element. That made it a bit disappointing for me. As a whole, though, I still had a pretty good time. 

Without spoiling anything, this is where it gets a bit too predictable. I really thought I knew who the Chameleon was, and it turned out that I was sort of right… sort of. The Chameleon is a great villain, by the way. The two things that were a bit disappointing were, again, those two particular elements I really wish could have been delved into a lot more, and the story being pretty predictable. I guess there’s nothing wrong with predictability. 

A lot of other animated movies I can think of are predictable and do have stories that have been done to death, but do something new and unique with them, such as “Coco”, “Luca”, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”, to name a few. This one honestly doesn’t. You know what’s gonna happen by the end, you know the lesson, it’s pretty repetitive. That being said, the movie does have its fair share of hilarious moments indeed.

Jack Black is as funny as ever, and this group of thugs that the fox belongs to is a knockout with how they misunderstand Po’s attempts at proverbs, which are also very funny. There’s also this one fish who lives in another character’s mouth, and he just cracks me up as well. The villain is great, and Awkwafina’s character is great. I just think this could have been something a lot more, which is what I was expecting. 

Of course, compared to other films that disappointed me in the last few years, I would definitely much rather watch this one again. I really do wish those elements were explored a lot more to make this something really special. As is, though if you’re a die hard fan of this series like I am, it’s still worth it in my view. It has just enough hilarious moments and fun action sequences that one would expect from this series to outweigh the disappointing aspect of it. Not the best, but definitely good enough for me.