Erik Garcia

Kung fu panda 4 was easily the worst movie in the kung fu panda franchise for a couple of reasons. This is coming from someone who grew up with this franchise, and also knows most of the lines of the 3 movies. That's how much I loved this franchise. 1. Terribly written villain. The villian in this movie absolutely pales in comparison to the previous villains in terms of backstory. In the previous films, you got to see how evil and powerful they are and how they pose a grave threat to Po. Tai lung decimating the valley of peace, and defeating shifu, shen genociding all pandas and killing a kung fu master, kai taking every masters chi including oogways! But in this movie, the worst thing this villiain did was push someone down stairs. Furthermore, the previous villians all had an understandable reason why they became evil but for the chameleon, her reason was because she was too small to learn kung fu. But if you look at mantis, viper, shifu, all of them were able to learn kung fu just fine and they're also small🤦‍♂️. She's evil just because the writers says so. 2. Terrible new character (Zhen/Fox). Zhen is a completely unlikable, irritating character with an artifical friendship with po. The controversy of her actor rings true in this movie as well. Throughout the entire movie she always mocks po for his kindness, empathy, and constantly makes fun of him. She also acts like an entitled brat. Keep in mind this goes on until the very end of the movie, where she finally has a little change of heart but again, doesn't feel natural at all. And po just forgives her after all the things she did to him? She didn't even redeem herself in this movie after all the things she did to po. 3. Extremely predictable plot. The trailer says Po needs to find a new dragon warrior. And just so happens to meet a fox. You can already see where this is going right? 4. Incohesive movie lore. Tai lung, shen, kai all return to this movie. But they do not act at all like themselves. Tai lung suddenly accepts po as the dragon warrior just because he defeated the chameleon? Shen bows to po even after genociding all pandas, and attempting to kill po because of the hatred he had for po due to the prophecy? Kai just willingly goes back to the spirit realm even after spending 500 years in the last movie gathering chi to return to the mortal realm??? He even said that he was willing to fight for 500 more years for po's chi! Not to mention he exploded from too much chi energy in the last movie. So how is he back in the spirit realm? Furthermore, none of them talk at all. Not one single word. Why??? 5. The movie has no underlying message. The kung fu panda movies always had a life lesson. That's what made them relatable on a personal level. The first movie was any goal is achievable with hardwork and dedication. The second was coming to terms with your past, and how it doesn't define who you are. But rather what you choose to do now does. The third movie was about pushing through your comfort zones and how many new opportunities arise from it. But this movie has absolutely nothing. It's simply a mindless, purposeless journey of defeating a villain. That's it. 🤦‍♂️. Overall, this movie belongs to the gutter. It adds nothing good to the story, lore, or characters of the kung fu panda franchise. This was simply a cash grab. Which makes sense considering they did not pay for voice acting of the furious 5 or shen and kai. 0/10.