More Kung Poo than Kung Fu

“Prepare for awesomeness'' reads the tagline to Kung Fu Panda 2, the sequel to box-office smash Kung Fu Panda. Come the end credits, you will be wondering exactly where the awesomeness you were supposed to prepare for was. After being deemed the Dragon Warrior in the first film, the second picks up with food-loving panda Po (Jack Black) and the Furious Five warriors being tasked with a new and dangerous mission - defeat the evil peacock Lord Shen (Gary Oldman).

The screenwriters really want this to be a cute animated story that unites all of us.
Essentially the character of Po is a young man, living his life, when suddenly - kapow! He's the Dragon Warrior and he's forced to deal with something. Anything. Can we have a villain here? Oh, wait, there's Lord Shen - a Hitler-esque character complete with his very own Holocaust where he swaps killing Jews for killing pandas. The script plugs too hard for an emotional arc - a journey of self-discovery - when the best thing about the first Kung Fu Panda was the frivolity.

The character of Po is literally Jack Black in panda form, there's no added features or altered voice work. When Po speaks, you just see the chubby comedian. The rest of the voice cast, who actually try and manipulate their pipes to create more believable characters, are completely underused. Talent like Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Dustin Hoffman, Oldman, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Danny McBride and even Jean-Claude Van Damme barely get a few lines. DreamWorks Animation would have paid the big bucks for them, so it seems wasteful for the film to be taken up with Blackisms.

Visually, Kung Fu Panda 2 is faultless and the closest DreamWorks has come to rivalling the superior Pixar. The animators deliver a one-two punch with a combination of first rate computer generated animation in 3D and more traditional, 2D animation used in flashback scenes. Unfortunately a pretty pictures does not a good movie make. With story and humour both lacking, Kung Fu Panda 2 is a school holiday film only young children will find amusing. For the rest of us, it's a boring and been-there-before 90 minutes.

Kung Fu Panda 2 is out Thursday, June 23.

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Not apPAULling at all

Imagine going on a road trip through the backwaters of North American with Nick Frost and Simon Pegg. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Throw in a crude alien with the voice Seth Rogen and you have the premise for Paul, a sci-fi comedy that is thankfully a lot more spectacular than its title.

Frost and Pegg play two British, Klingon-speaking comic-book geeks who fulfil their lifelong dream of going to San Diego Comic-Con and hiring a RV to visit the famous UFO hotspots in rural American. They bump into Paul, an extraterrestrial on the lam from a government agency trying to have him lobotomised. The trio become allies as they try to keep the weed-smoking, f-bomb dropping alien out of the clutches of government agents (Jason Bateman, Bill Hader) and The Big Guy (Sigourney Weaver).

Frost and Pegg are, quite frankly, comic geniuses and although this isn't as good as their previous efforts Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, which they also wrote and starred in, Paul is still a lot of fun. The first genuinely funny comedy of the year, it's full of unexpected gags, original punch lines and a pitch-perfect cast, namely Hader and Bateman as Men In Black-esque agents, but also Kristen Wiig as Pegg's love interest and Glee's Jane Lynch in a painfully small cameo.

Being a sci-fi comedy from the creators of cult TV series Spaced, you expect there to be plenty of genre references. Yet Pegg and Frost take the pop-culture winks to another level, referencing everything from Aliens and Close Encounters, to Titanic and Jaws. Director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland) proves he can be funny outside of hormone-fuelled teenagers, leading Frost and Pegg in light-hearted, laugh-out-loud road trip romp.

Paul opens tomorrow.

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I’m here with all of my people

Judd Apatow and the team are at it again, but this time there’s no virginity, childbirth or naked Jason Segel involved. The trailer for the director/writer/producers latest movie Funny People has literally just gone up on the web. You can check it out here. What do you think? Adam Sandler stars as a seasoned comedian, George Simmons, who learns he’s terminally ill and decides to form a friendship with an unknown comedian/writer (played by Seth Rogen) and adopt him as his opening act. Aussie maestro Eric Bana also has a major role and it’s great to see him doing comedy in Hollywood as that’s the genre he originally started out in here. Apatow’s wifey Leslie Mann also stars as does Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, Sarah Silverman and RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. Personally, I think it sounds tres exciting and I’m looking forward to the large number of decent comedies which are being released this year. Funny People is out in Australia on July 30.

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Bro-mance anyone?

Just got out of the Pineapple Express premiere and I have good news…it’s hilarious. In fact, I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in a comedy for a long, long time. I can’t even remember the last time I went to a comedy at the movies and genuinely laughed the whole way through! How sad! Oh how I’ve desperately wanted to laugh but there’s been so many shit comedies lately my funny bone has remained untickled. Until tonight that is. Notably the Pineapple Express trailer was good but so was the You Don’t Mess With The Zohan trailer and we all know what a craptastic movie that was. The Pineapple Express explores the depths of a dealer buyer relationship between Saul Silver (James Franco) and Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) when the two go on the run after Denton witnesses a murder. Hilarity ensues. Yeah, okay, so there’s more to the plot than outlined above but I’m not going to wreck the rest of the movie for you, just go see it.

What’s the verdict you ask? I loved it. I loved it so much I got many a stare during the screening because my elmo-esque laugh stands out, especially in a cinema when no one else is laughing at that point. Admittedly if you’re not a fan of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s style of comedy (i.e 40-year-old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad and a slice of Forgetting Sarah Marshall) then this probably won’t appeal to you. Like a lot of the comedy trio’s other films, this one explores the notion of bro-mance and how decent mates essentially can’t live without each other. Also, if you can’t handle stoner jokes then avoid. To the remaining 99% of the population jump on the Pineapple Express because it’s heading direct to awesome-town. It’s common knowledge Franco and Rogen have stayed bosom buddies since their days on 90s comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks and they use their real life mateship perfectly to bounce off each others performance. In the end, it’s Franco who shines. More known in Hollywood for his `total hotness’ and dramatic roles (personal favs include Spiderman1,2, 3 and Tristain&Isolde) Franco is SO good at comedy and plays this role SO perfectly you’ll forget he’s acting. Pineapple Express pays homage to the action-comedies of the 70s and 80s which is a bold move for Apatow and the team, especially considering how god awful that could have gone. Somehow the combination of action, comedy and signature Apatow/Rogen style (I’ll call it Apagen) come together like hot fudge toping on a sundae, if you were that way inclined.

My consensus: thank-freaking-halleluiah for the Pineapple Express because I was beginning to lose my faith in comedies, high fives all round y’all. Go see it. Honestly though, I don’t think I can wait this long between decent comedies, it’s just too much to bear.

Fav part: (Franco runs in, slow mo) Fuck the po-lice!

Stay tuned for Stop Loss review faithful readers . . . .

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