{"id":4198,"date":"2025-03-11T15:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T21:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4198"},"modified":"2025-01-10T12:58:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T19:58:47","slug":"movie-kung-fu-panda-4-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/11\/movie-kung-fu-panda-4-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KungKung Fu Panda 4
<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2024
Rating: PG
Length: 94 minutes \/ 1.57 hours<\/p>\n

Where movies like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes<\/em><\/a> (2024) are the exception to the “fourth movie after a contained trilogy” rule, Kung Fu Panda 4<\/em> (2024) is the unnecessary sequel that’s still just trying to cash in on a franchise. While I think the first Kung Fu Panda<\/em><\/a> (2008) was the best of the first three movies, their story of Po’s (Jack Black) journey to becoming a kung fu master felt complete by the end of the third film. That this movie barely had any of the characters from the previous movies should give you an idea of how the actors saw it.<\/p>\n

The problem Kung Fu Panda 4<\/em> falls into is the same one that I think plagued Cars 3<\/em><\/a> (2017). When the main character of the franchise is now set to be the mentor of the next generation, it usually means the writers are out of ideas. Because this trope is just a re-working of the first movie of the franchise, there’s nothing new here other than the upgrading of the main character\u2014often a reluctant main character\u2014from prot\u00e9g\u00e9 to mentor.<\/p>\n

While I still enjoy all the fancy footwork and kung fu that modern computers can create, most of it feels hollow without a purpose. In previous entries, Po had to fight villains that had new and interesting relationships with kung fu. That the Chameleon (Viola Davis) had almost the same powers and motivation as General Kai (J. K. Simmons) from Kung Fu Panda 3<\/em> (2016) but with none of the intimidation factor meant that the plot didn’t feel like it had any threats to be taken seriously. It’s safe to say, if you enjoyed the other Kung Fu Panda<\/em> movies, you’re likely to be disappointed with this one.<\/p>\n

A tried and true unnecessary sequel after a complete trilogy, I give Kung Fu Panda 4<\/em> 2.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/u><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kung Fu Panda 4Year: 2024Rating: PGLength: 94 minutes \/ 1.57 hours Where movies like Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) are the exception to the “fourth movie after a contained trilogy” rule, Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024) is the unnecessary sequel that’s still just trying to cash in on a franchise. While I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1199,2],"tags":[3845,4042,4043,3842,3841,4040,13,3843,4041,8,34,4044,521],"class_list":["post-4198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-5-stars","category-animated","category-movie","tag-3845","tag-chameleon","tag-fourth-film","tag-jack-black","tag-kung-fu","tag-kung-fu-panda-4","tag-movie","tag-panda","tag-po","tag-review","tag-sequel","tag-unnecessary","tag-viola-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4198"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4204,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions\/4204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}