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June 12-18, 2008
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Everybody was Kung Fu fighting
by Michael Phillips
I now pronounce you crude and hairy
by Michael Phillips
 Everybody was Kung Fu fighting
by Michael Phillips
Everything about Kung Fu Panda is a little better, a little sharper, a little funnier than the animated run of the mill. It’s one of the few comedies of 2008 in any style or genre that knows what it’s doing. Plus, all its jokes actually belong to the same movie, which is set in ancient China by way of Jack Black. In other words, it may have Black fulminating about “(going) blind from overexposure to pure awesomeness!” but nobody slips in a Travis Bickle impersonation or utters some pop-culturally exhausted catch phrase such as “Make my day” simply to amuse the parents.
With Black voicing the role of a martial arts-obsessed panda who lives his dreams of high-flying glory, the film has an air of assurance and rightness of casting from the get-go. Take, for example, the scene in which star-struck Po tours the Jade Palace’s “sacred hall of warriors.” He can’t believe his big panda eyes. “Master Flying Wino’s armor — with authentic battle damage! The sword of heroes, said to be so sharp you can cut yourself just by looking at — ow!” You read those exclamations, riffing on Jackie Chan’s early Drunken Master success a generation ago, and knowing Black’s the one doing the voice, you can hear almost precisely how it sounds on-screen, coming from a gob-smacked panda’s mouth. And it sounds right.
Kung Fu Panda works from a time- and profit-honed DreamWorks template, the one showcasing the wisenheimer critters of various species. This time, though, even with a surfeit of battle sequences riffing on live-action martial arts iconography dating back to Enter the Dragon, the energy captivates. All the actors earn their keep, from Angelina Jolie, playing it earnestly and well as a fearsome tigress, to veteran character actor James Hong as Po’s dad. He is a goose named Mr. Ping who runs a noodle shop. “We are noodle folk,” he tells his apparently adopted son, who would rather not inherit the family business. The goosey way Hong says it brings a smile to your face.
The plot, like the quality of the computer animation, is at once familiar and well-executed. Po is ancient China’s most ardent fan of his kung fu heroes, the “Furious Five.” One day Po sneaks away from his noodle duties to witness the ceremony announcing the selection of the “Dragon Warrior,” protector of the Valley of Peace. After accidentally inserting himself into the selection process, Po becomes the chosen one. He must overcome his physical bulk and general geekiness to prove himself to martial arts master Shifu (a gremlin-like rodent voiced, wittily, in a perpetual mutter, by Dustin Hoffman). He must then help save the kingdom from the wrath of a vengeful snow leopard (Ian McShane of Deadwood).
Directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne exploit the various training and battle sequences — one or two too many, probably — for all they’re worth. Kung Fu Panda references everything from Bruce Lee to Stephen Chow to Jackie Chan. (Chan voices one of the Furious Five.). The CinemaScope format allows for a lot of spacious lateral flying kicks and background detail in terms of architecture and topography, two things that won’t matter in the least to the film’s target audience, unless they’re sons and daughters of landscape architects. But the execution is elegant, even at its most slapstick. I particularly like Po and Shifu’s battle for control of a dumpling, waged with chopsticks.
Many won’t agree with this next statement, particularly if they’re fans of the monstrously lucrative Shrek franchise. But here it is: I prefer Kung Fu Panda to any of the Shreks, along with moderately diverting entertainments such as Bee Movie, plus more grating items such as Madagascar, Shark Tale and Over the Hedge. We’re still a good distance here from a modern classic, such as last summer’s Ratatouille, a work of true and idiosyncratic artistry about a true and idiosyncratic artist. The main virtue of Kung Fu Panda (doesn’t that title just smell like money being minted?) is its skill in freshening up the old formulas, with a prime voice cast and a verifiable sense of humor. The story comes from a less cynical place than most other animated features. And by the time the end credits roll, the soundtrack’s use of “Kung Fu Fighting” seems like a happy inevitability, like so much else in this exuberant studio product.
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 I now pronounce you crude and hairy
by Michael Phillips
An Israeli-on-Arab version of Shampoo, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is terrible in many ways, and shoddy in every way that has to do with filmmaking. But politically it’s sort of interesting. This crass comic burlesque on Middle Eastern relations showcases Adam Sandler as a counterterrorism commando who fakes his own death so that he can leave the hate behind and concentrate on mousse.
Right down to its zingers aimed at Mel Gibson’s post-DUI anti-Semitic tirade, it’s the most explicitly Jewish of Sandler’s projects to date — and that includes the Hanukkah bash “Eight Crazy Nights.” Last year’s Sandler vehicle, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, simultaneously exploited and decried homophobia. Similarly, Zohan simultaneously exploits and decries anti-Arab sentiment, right up until the moment we’re handed an image of Israeli-Arab solidarity as the warring factions unite against the real enemy. Who is the real enemy? American greed, in the form of a venal real estate developer modeled on Donald Trump, determined to gentrify the living daylights out of post-9/11 Lower Manhattan.
The premise is agreeably insane. For years, commando Zohan (Sandler) and his nemesis, the Palestinian terrorist and fast-food franchise maven Phantom (John Turturro, mugging like there’s no tomorrow) have been going at each other like an endlessly renewed Six-Day War. But Zohan harbors dreams of leaving the hate behind and jetting off to America to cut and style hair. Soon he’s doing just that, as well as dallying with his grateful customers, apparently all cast-offs from the Rolodex once belonging to Max Bialystock.
Sex with the aging female clientele is one thing, but the soft center of Zohan is supplied by the cross-cultural romance between Zohan and his salon’s Palestinian owner (Emmanuelle Chriqui), not so far away in spirit from the Jew-on-Catholic mash-up of Abie’s Irish Rose nearly a century earlier. Mainly, the film is a shrill, broad cartoon, heavy on the gross-out and the jokey brutality. Director Dennis Dugan (who hacked his way through Chuck and Larry) parks the camera and records such sights as Arab and Jew squaring off in a game of ping-pong with a hand grenade. Later, we see a group of fellows playing hacky-sack with a live cat. Later still, there’s a deft parody of the Rocky training montage, and who would’ve thought that was possible? Also, Rob Schneider trades his simpering caricature of an Asian-American in Chuck and Larry for a rageful Muslim cabbie, desperate to join Hezbollah. Offensive? Of course. I just wish it were funnier: The ideas and some of the individual bits in Zohan work, but the crudeness of the execution undermines the results.
–MCT
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