Justin Karnes

TL;DR: You could watch worse films than this. Kung Fu Panda 4 is representative of all the things I consider to be wrong with Hollywood productions in the modern age of film. It literally checks all the boxes: * Attempts to reap continuity through Nostalgia * Disregards character beats which took place previously in the franchise * No sense of pacing with character development * Tells as opposed to Shows * Made to have as much general audience appeal as possible Spoilers for the movie lie ahead. You have been warned. My main issue with this film is with how it presents the characters: * Zhen's backstory is quite literally exposited to us by Chameleon and it takes all of 40 seconds. * Chameleon is depicted as being this big-brain strategist sorceress and yet fails to send Zhen to gain Po's trust in time to bring the Staff of Wisdom to Juniper City in time for the Blood Moon's Ascent (which is really just a plot contrivance for why everything is so rushed). * Po seemingly has forgotten all of his character development from the previous three films and is back to being as he was in the first film... albeit with Kung Fu skills. * Ping and Lee only provide comic relief and don't really add anything relevant to the plot. You could literally remove them entirely and still have a solid film. * Shifu outright dismisses Zhen as the new Dragon Warrior having not taken his lesson from Oogway choosing Po. It's just bad writing all over the board. There's too many contrivances to make up for a lack of thought with how to best present the story. Imagine this plot line instead: We open on Juniper City and see the bustle of city life, Zhen's parents lose her in the crowd or she is abducted. Some people are talking about Master Oogway calling for candidates to be the next Dragon Warrior and we get a shot of a flier to reinforce this fact. We see Zhen grow up in contrast to Po and see Chameleon demonstrate subtly to us that she sees Zhen as a tool and not as a surrogate daughter when Zhen calls her "Mom" and Chameleon corrects her with "Master." We zip through training Zhen in the ways of the street and then Chameleon tells her that she has a special job, just for her, now that she's ready... and we cut to a shot of the Staff of Wisdom, in Po's hands, as he opens the new restaurant. Rather than set up Zhen as working for Chameleon as a twist, milk the tension of the audience knowing Zhen's motives aren't pure and have them wonder if she's starting to question her Master's training by Po's good nature. So many options and they went with _this_. 3/5.