Panda Fighting His Past...

Today I watched Kung Fu Panda 2, the sequel of the very funny movie about a Panda raising in the Kung Fu hierarchy to the coveted levels of Dragon Master. The sequel treads the similar lines of first part. But with some darker undertones. Still it is a fun watch and I will recommend it to any kid out there- from 1 to 100 year old!

This time Po, the dragon warrior Panda has to fight a peacock who is making evil scheme for domination! The Furious five constituting of  Tigress, Monkey, Swan, Mantis and Viper are there to accompany him on his mission along with Master Shifu and two new masters Croc and Rhino. What complicates the plot is the nightmares which occurs to Po that is some how connected to his past and his tries to find out about them. Finally he realizes that his past is linked with the mission that he is involved in. 

The animation is much more stunning than the first part. Fights are a treat to watch, plot and characters are well built. The cast is also too good. Jack Black, Jolie, Hoffman, Michelle Yeoh and Gary Oldman excels. But the other four in furious five, does not have much to do. It is a pity that Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu  has just two or three piece of dialogue in the whole movie. This time they got Jean Claude Van Damme to give voice for Master Croc. But he is also terribly under used.  

Another funny thing is that I happened to watch this comedy called Paul Blart: the Mall Cop today morning on TV, which is about an overweight security guard doing a Bruce Willis and protecting the mall that he is in charge from thieves. Kung Fu Panda 2 looks strikingly similar to this movie. Apart from the similarities of the leading characters, the vehicle that Po drives also seems to be inspired from the Mall Cop movie.