REVIEW 15: KUNG FU PANDA 2 (3D)

Release date in India:	May 27, 2011
Director:	Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Cast:	Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Gary Oldman, Michelle Yeoh, Jean-Claude Van Damme, James Hong

The makers of The Hangover: Part II should have watched Kung Fu Panda 2 for guidelines on follow-up films! Because THIS is how sequels should be made!

Po the pot-bellied panda is still a huggable darling, he’s still voiced by the inimitable Jack Black, he’s still an overweight practitioner of martial arts, in his role as The Dragon Warrior he’s still on a mission to save China and kung fu, and he still hangs out with the gang: Tigress, Viper, Mantis, Monkey and Crane. But this time the carefree Po of Part 1 is troubled by questions of his identity and his roots. He’s also up against a sinister white peacock whose parents had discovered the power of fire but also detected the evil streak in their son who would grow up to misuse it. Adding to the new plot elements in the film is the 3D which (if you don’t mind the dimness that continues to plague all 3D films) lends a fresh dimension to the breathless action sequences and the cuteness factor. As any human teenager or Po himself would tell you: it’s “awesomeness”!

The voice cast of this film reads like a Hollywood hall of fame that will have you rubbing your eyes in wonderment as the credits roll (yes, Michelle Yeoh and Jean-Claude Van Damme are new additions voicing the benign Soothsayer and Master Croc). Jack Black knows precisely how to portray the light-hearted Po who turns responsible at just the right time. Angelina Jolie proves with her turn as Tigress, that sexy is not about a hot body, a pretty face or luscious lips. Sexy is a state of being. You can’t see the actress, yet you can hear the smooth feline purr in her vocal intonations for the big cat. Gary Oldman’s nasty peacock Lord Shen is menacing despite his physical magnificence. And Po’s goose Daddy must rank as one of the cutest animated characters I’ve ever seen in a Hollywood film: everything falls into place for him – his dialogues, his back story, his sad eyes, his pouting beak and James Hong’s voice.

This is pure unadulterated entertainment with masterful voice acting, top-notch effects (including a very neat switch to more basic animation in the flashback scenes), sharp writing, lavish visuals and a sense of humour that is balanced impeccably with the film’s heavier portions. Panda 2 is also making several statements in an unobtrusively didactic fashion. Master Shifu’s lesson for Po is clear: to attain your goals you must first find inner peace. In young Shen’s ability to envision the destructive potential of fire power, surely there is a comment on our war-ravaged world. Watching the feisty Tigress should be a satisfying experience for the feminists among us: she refuses to pander to Po’s ego by camouflaging her own strength but she unflinchingly accepts him as the chosen one. Methinks Tigress is Hillary Clinton. And of course there are parallels between Po’s early years, Mary and Joseph’s escape to Egypt to save the Baby Jesus from King Herod’s men and – though I have no idea if the director and writers intended this – the story of Baby Krishna and Kansa.

But the loveliest element for me in Kung Fu Panda 2 is the completely, utterly charming reference to adoption. I suspect Americans don’t need that message as much as we reluctant-to-adopt Indians do, so please make note of it. Mr Ping the Goose hesitantly reveals to his panda son that he’s adopted. I kinda guessed, says the bear who probably knows a thing or two about the mating habits of species. 

With the switch to 3D, the choice of villain is a masterstroke since it gives the film’s animators plenty of opportunities to swish that lavish plumage at us. On the downside, a couple of action sequences are unnecessarily stretched and noisy. And while cramming so many characters into one film, director Jennifer Yuh Nelson forgot to develop Viper, Mantis, Monkey and Crane who remain nothing more than Po’s sidekicks to us. That apart, since it’s all so well put together, the good news is that the film’s ending leaves us with the very obvious promise of a Part 3. I won’t tell you what that ending is, but I’ll certainly say this: there were sparks between Tigress and Po in this film. If a romance doesn’t blossom in the next sequel, then that’s probably what the producers are saving up for Part 4 ... and biology be damned! Now that’s what Po would call “awesomeness”.

Rating (out of five): ***1/2

Release date in the US:	May 26, 2011
MPAA Rating (US):	PG (for sequences of martial arts action and mild violence)
CBFC Rating (India):	U without cuts
Running time in the US:	90 minutes
Running time in India:	90 minutes
Language:	English

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Panda_2  

REVIEW 6: RED RIDING HOOD

Release date in India:	March 18, 2011
Director:	Catherine Hardwicke
Cast:	Amanda Seyfreid, Gary Oldman, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Julie Christie

It’s a familiar story on unfamiliar ground. We all know Red Riding Hood, the classic children’s tale about a much-loved little girl and her grandmother who are saved from a wicked wolf in the forest by a woodcutter. In the hands of director Catherine Hardwicke, it becomes a saga of werewolves and ruined relationships, wealth-versus-true-love at the marriage stakes and all sorts of other things that I can see it’s trying to say but doesn’t quite manage to.

Some of this is not surprising at all considering that Hardwicke’s the one who shook up the world box-office with her vampire film Twilight. And after all, there’s no rule saying you can’t adapt/re-write a classic. But there should perhaps be an international law banning silly, pretentious, frantically-aspiring-to-be-intellectual re-interpretations of old stories.

Red Riding Hood the film is about a beautiful young woman called Valerie in the village of Daggerhorn (time and country unspecified). Valerie loves the local woodcutter Peter but her parents have promised her hand in marriage to Henry Lazar, the son of a well-to-do blacksmith. Their love triangle is played out against the backdrop of a larger danger that constantly dogs Daggerhorn: a werewolf that terrorises the population. One night, when the beast attacks the hamlet, he asks Valerie to go away with him. Since she’s the only one who understands his tongue, she is assumed to be a witch and is imprisoned by Father Solomon, an outsider who has been brought in to destroy the werewolf. He explains to the villagers that the demon dwells among them in human form by day, and is clearly someone who wants Valerie very much. So is it Peter? Or Henry perhaps?

The manner in which the guessing game is played out is the stupidest part of the film. Since this is Red Riding Hood, there is a grandmother who lives in the woods, of course. Playing the old lady is veteran Julie Christie who overacts to embarrassing effect in a bid to make us suspect that she’s the fiend-in-human-clothing.

Down the centuries, the story of Red Riding Hood has come to mean many things to many people. Some scholars have seen it quite literally as a lesson to children that they should not stray away from the right path. For others it’s been a comment on the dangers of the unknown lurking in the forest away from the known space of the village. And yet others have understood it to be a morality tale about the sexual awakening of young women and sexual predators who prey on innocent girls. Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood is trying to say many equally profound things but ends up saying too much, which adds up to nothing at all because of the absurdity of the proceedings.

Take for instance the Biblical allusions being made through Father Solomon, the Christian priest who is also a witch-and-werewolf hunter. As a man who killed his own wife because he discovered she’s a werewolf, I suppose he is meant to represent the severity of organised religion, especially in medieval Europe. The only black people in this film are the holy man’s henchmen – one of them ultimately kills Solomon when the padre himself is bitten by the werewolf. A point is possibly being made here about racism, the rebellion of the suppressed classes, and the rule book being thrown right back at the ruling elite by a once-subjugated people. You see, Father Solomon had earlier slaughtered the black man’s brother who’d been bitten by the werewolf, with the justification that any human once bitten would become a werewolf himself. Or perhaps the reference is to the wise and wealthy King Solomon in the Bible – actor Gary Oldman certainly dresses up for the part in regal robes.

There are other issues this film raises through its characters. The incarceration of Valerie harks back to the witch hunts in Europe and America which feminists believe were a perfect excuse to target smart, outspoken women: in this instance, Valerie’s sprightliness and uncommon agility are cited as proof of her links with witch-craft. A mentally challenged child’s disability is misconstrued by Father Solomon as evidence of his connection with the werewolf. Solomon himself is a confusing character since he’s uncompromisingly harsh at one level and yet, contrary to what everyone thinks, he is not really throwing Valerie to the wolves (I know, terrible pun! Sorry!). But none of it works because of the ridiculous attempts to manipulate the audience while we try to guess the identity of the werewolf.  As our old F.R.I.E.N.D. Chandler Bing might have said: Could grandma’s eyes GET any wider? Could she BE more obvious? Could this film BE any sillier?

Amanda Seyfreid – the nasty Plastic from Mean Girls and Meryl Streep’s daughter in Mamma Mia – tries hard to lend believability to the goings-on in Red Riding Hood. So does production designer Tom Sanders who gives Daggerhorn a suitably sinister and old-world look. But that’s not enough to salvage this film with its foolish storyline, childish direction and muddled writing. Take for instance the conservatism that surrounds Valerie. It doesn’t stop her from seeking out some action in a haystack with a lover – which is a perfectly understandable way of illustrating that she’s a girl with a mind of her own. But how come none of the stiff-necked grown-ups around raised a single eyebrow at her unabashed lesbian dance with another girl at what seemed like an open-air rave party? Maybe the ‘message’ of the film is that we will all find the bad girl within us if we get our parents sufficiently drunk!

But the low point of Red Riding Hood is a dream sequence in which Valerie repeats those famous lines from the old story: “Grandma what big eyes you have!” … “Grandma what big ears you have!” … “Grandma what big teeth you have!” All the better to make us laugh.

Rating (out of five): *1/2

Release date in the US:	March 11, 2011
MPAA Rating (US):	PG-13 (“for violence & creature terror, and some sensuality”)
CBFC Rating (India):	U / A with no cuts
Running time:	100 Minutes
Language:	English

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Riding_Hood_(2011_film)