Kung Fu Panda 4 Review - Renegade Animation #139
In loving memory of Akira Toriyama (April 5, 1955 – March 1, 2024)
In this episode, Captain Kaye and the Animation Guru discuss the latest installment of the Kung Fu Panda franchise, Kung Fu Panda 4.
What’s going on, everyone? This is your Captain speaking, alongside my co-host, The Animation Guru! Leading up to the recording of this podcast, it’s been an eventful weekend in the world of animation. It began with the heartbreaking news of legendary manga artist Akira Toriyama’s passing, and ended with The Boy and the Heron winning Best Animated Feature at the 96th Academy Awards. Tune into the podcast to hear the full discussion, as Cameron and I share our mixed thoughts on Kung Fu Panda 4, and how it stacks up against the rest of the franchise.
Kung Fu Panda 4
We forgot to bring this up on the podcast itself, but Tenacious D’s cover of “…Baby One More Time” that plays over the credits has been stuck in my head all week. Narratively, I think Cameron and I will both agree that this is the weakest of the four films so far, and that may be due to Mike Mitchell’s over reliance on humor in place of a lot of the heart and soul provided by previous director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Still, I had a lot of fun watching this in the theater. The animation still looks incredible, the new additions to the cast are quite enjoyable, and the music from Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro is fantastic.
“While having some fantastic action, solid comedy, and a story about the importance of growing and change, it lacks the emotional core for its story, characters, and villain. Still, another solid film in this great franchise.“ -The Animation Guru
That’ll do it for this episode! Thank you all for joining us! We have provided resources for those who wish to support the victims of the Israel-Hamas war: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/, https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/, https://itch.io/b/2120/games-for-gaza, https://www.instagram.com/palestineredcrescent/, https://buildpalestine.com/2021/05/15/trusted-organizations-to-donate-to-palestine/, https://www.npr.org/2023/10/13/1205235922/help-israel-gaza-humanitarian-organizations.
