Critics Have a Healthy Appetite for Fourth Serving of ‘Kung Fu Panda’

With Jack Black ready to make his triumphant return as the black-and-white hero in Kung Fu Panda 4 this Friday, March 8, critics are weighing in on the skadoosh-worthiness of Po’s latest adventure. Fans of the DreamWorks franchise and those carting the next generation of young moviegoers to cinemas will be glad to know that reviews are promising a solid, action-packed family adventure that follows the tao of KFP.

Directed by Mike Mitchell (Trolls, Shrek Forever After) and co-directed by Stephanie Ma Stine (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), Kung Fu Panda 4 finds Po (Jack Black) harkening to the call of destiny… to retire.

Tapped to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace, Po must train a new Dragon Warrior to take his place. But the arrival of a new villain known as the Chameleon (Viola Davis) — a sorceress who can shapeshift and summon the powers of Po’s previous foes — complicates matters. To defeat this threat and protect the Valley, Po forms an odd-couple alliance with a crafty thief (Awkwafina) and discovers heroes can come from anywhere.

The fourth installment has earned a 77% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes (from 39 critics’ reviews) so far, with a more mixed rating of 54 on MetaCritic (20 critics’ reviews). By comparison, Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) holds an 87% critics’ rating / 79% audience score, Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) is at 81%/74% and the original Kung Fu Panda (2008) is still kicking with 87%/83%. The three previous films have totted up $1.8 billion in global box office.

Here’s what some of the critics are saying:

“With its new settings and characters, including Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan as a pangolin leader of a den of thieves and Ronnie Chieng as a fish that lives in a pelican’s mouth, Kung Fu Panda 4 clearly aims to refresh the franchise. But it’s really more of the same, which is not such a bad thing … Its appeal still lies largely in Black’s hilarious vocal performance which has lost none of its charm. Here, he’s well matched by Awkwafina, who brings such verve to her line readings that she’s a cinch to return in the inevitable future installments.”

— Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

“As always, it’s the animators who are the real heroes here. From the thick fur on the pandas, to clay tiles smashing on roofs to rain splashing on stones, barroom brawls and petals wafting from cherry trees, this is a visual delight. Creating The Chameleon — and her scary Komodo dragon guards — gives the animators a chance to show a tiny lizard metamorphosize into an elephant in a few seconds and they relish it. They also sometimes dip into different animation styles, giving a viewer a visual break.”

— Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

“Kung Fu Panda movies have always excelled based less on story and more on style; at their best, the films offered action scenes up there with the best any animated film has to offer. Kung Fu Panda 4 ably continues that legacy. Director Mike Mitchell and co-director Stephanie Ma Stine, making their debut in the franchise, effectively stage a variety of acrobatic, wuxia-inspired showdowns with inventive combat and satisfying weight to them, including a climatic battle that ranks among the best seen in these films. The film’s animation is consistently gorgeous, and there’s a variety of visually inventive locations (a tavern staffed by enslaved bunnies located precariously on a rocky ledge) and characters (an Arowana fish pirate, voiced by Ronny Chieng, living inside a pelican’s mouth).”

— Wilson Chapman, IndieWire

“Despite some fertile narrative ground to build upon, aside from a few, scattered but sweet scenes, there’s so much emotionality and thematic depth left on the table, in favor of comedy above all … Yes, there are still the fights to look forward to, and they’re as beautifully stylish and bombastic as fans of the Kung Fu Panda have come to expect, but this series has historically been able to balance that bombast with more heart than what’s on display here.”

— Justin Clark, Slant

“Unlike the second film, which incorporates a variety of visual styles to move character and story development forward with 2D and die-cut silhouettes, Kung Fu Panda 4 uses an anime-style split screen … The all-too-brief barroom brawl oner, where we follow Zhen from behind as she tries to evade capture, is an undeniable highlight, as is The Chameleon’s transformation sequence that plays like gateway horror for kiddos … Black’s effervescent, ebullient vocalizations and his character’s positivity, gumption, and vulnerability — no matter how slight and superficial here — are what bolster the picture.”

— Courtney Howard, AV Club

“This genial fourth-chapter action fairy tale has all the things it’s supposed to have, at least according to the blockbuster animation playbook: Po kicking butt between daydreams of doughy cuisine; a quirky fighting sidekick — an androgynous-looking fox named Zhen, voiced by Awkwafina — who spends the film trading barbs with him; box-checking encounters with Po’s parents, Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) and Mr. Ping (James Hong), as well as his training guru, the ancient curmudgeon Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman); plus a supervillain who does all she can to take over the world. Yet as the movie unfolded, all I could think was, Where’s the skadoosh?”

— Owen Gleiberman, Variety