The stunning visuals in DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 3? surpass the high standards set by its predecessors, but storywise, the latest adventures of goofy Po the panda break no new ground.Once more voiced by the terrific Jack Black, Po meets and bonds with his long-lost biological father Li( a very good Bryan Cranston), much to the consternation of his adoptive father, the goose Mr. Ping( the venerable James Hong, perhaps the best of all) .
But they all have to pull together when a fearsome warrior duck named Kai( J.K. Simmons, excellent) emerges from the Spirit World after stealing the chi of Po’s tortoise mentor, Master Oogway( Randall Duk Kim), and other kung fu masters and storing them in jade amulets.Wise old Master Shifu( Dustin Hoffman) and Po’s pals, the Furious Five — Tigress( Angelina Jolie), Monkey( Jackie Chan), Mantis( Seth Rogen), Viper( Lucy Liu) and Crane( David Cross) — are powerless against Kai’s moves and have their chi taken.Kai knows that the Chosen One is Po, who hasreturned with his father to the ancestral mountain village of the pandas where Po and Li survived an earlier onslaught by Kai.It’s up to Li to convince Po he’s up to the task — and for Po to form an army out of the other pandas, including the ribbon-dancing Mei Mei( Kate Hudson), who has a roaring crush on Po, to stop Kai’s rampage.That’s a lot of characters — some of the returnees don’t have a whole lot to do — and plot to juggle. But the directors( Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni) and writers( Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger) are up to the challenge, even if they keep falling back on the old “be the best you that you can be” aphorism.There’s enough humor to entertain the kids, and older animation aficionados will be entranced by the inventive, high-quality visuals, some inspired by graphic novels and classic Chinese paintings. Hans Zimmer’s Asian-influenced score for “Kung Fu Panda 3?is also first-rate.
