DreamWorks Animation always has sequels to fall back on. That’s lamentably true of other American animation studios, too, but it’s been over two decades since DreamWorks could convincingly affect any kind of shyness about favoring franchising over creating new worlds, traceable back to the massive success of Shrek 2 in 2004 (appropriate, given that Shrek itself was essentially just Fractured Fairy Tales: The Movie). This assembly-line churn – a full 70% of their last ten features have been sequels, spinoffs, or sequels to spinoffs – means that the studio has more or less abdicated its origins as a brash-upstart competitor to the traditionalists at Disney, but it also means a relief of pressure that comes with that role. No one feels crushing disappointment when DreamWorks fails to produce a groundbreaking instant classic; at this point, they might feel more confused if they succeeded. Either way, no one’s getting mad over Kung Fu Panda 4.
In fact, while the Shrek series has long been identified as the DreamWorks signature (Shrek, Fiona and Donkey still get the final placement on the company’s obligatory overindulgent character-roll-call logo), maybe that unofficial honor should go to Kung Fu Panda instead. It’s the only mainline DreamWorks series to make it to four entries (though the Puss in Boots movies still give the Shrek-verse an overall edge), and its batting average is a lot higher, with inventive animated action sequences, appealing character designs, and memorable use of the DreamWorks celebrity-voice rolodex, with none of that Shrek smugness insisting that it doubles as sophisticated entertainment for adults. It’s even a similar formula: A big lunk with a heart of gold finds his calling as an unexpected hero. Over and over.
That’s what happens in Kung Fu Panda 4, which continues the journey of Po (Jack Black) by putting him through similar motions as the other sequels: Having become the Dragon Warrior, protector of the Valley of Peace, Po is called upon to fulfill some other, suspiciously similar role for which he feels reluctant and unprepared before rising to the challenge. In this installment, Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) informs Po that he must select a successor, so that he may ascend to the title of Spiritual Leader, which sounds an awful lot like the teaching position he was expected to assume in Kung Fu Panda 3 (and is little-mentioned here).
Po, having repeatedly mastered his command of kung fu, is reluctant to set aside his title so soon, and welcomes the distraction provided by the Chameleon (Viola Davis), a shapeshifting wizard who seeks to absorb the skills of past Po nemeses from the spirit realm. Forestalling his responsibility to name a new Dragon Warrior, he teams up with Zhen (Awkwafina), a wisecracking thief, to track down and neutralize this more immediate threat. Po’s adoptive and biological fathers (James Hong and Bryan Cranston, respectively) follow after them, worrying for Po’s safety, and also presumably as a cost-saving measure to pad out an ensemble now lacking the Furious Five (the characters usually voiced by Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, David Cross and Lucy Liu only appear via brief and mostly-silent cameos, though there is a visually pleasing sort-of-stop-motion component to their being essentially written off early on). Their devotion to Po is sweet, but not especially funny or even thematically purposeful. That’s true of much of the movie; despite the comic dynamo at its center, it’s more cutely amusing than laugh-out-loud hilarious.
If the semi-forgettable Kung Fu Panda 4 has an advantage over the semi-forgettable Kung Fu Panda 3, it’s the brief change of venue that allows Po and Zhen to caper around Juniper City, a more densely populated and crime-ridden environment than the Valley of Peace. Juniper City also provides opportunities for the animators to have fun with new character designs, like the boat captain who’s actually a fish housed within the mouth of a barely-sentient pelican, or the menagerie of criminals whom the Chameleon has been shaking down. The Chameleon herself is fun to look at, too, in all her regal bearing and shapeshifting glory; a lot of DreamWorks cartoons trade in bombastic action that’s somewhere between Looney Tunes and Michael Bay, while this series actually finds a balletic grace that’s more akin to martial arts colliding with kaiju fights.
As the next step in Po’s supposed journey, however, Kung Fu Panda 4 feels pretty canned compared to the first two movies, like a direct-to-streaming continuation that Jack Black has willed to the big screen via sheer enthusiasm. Its secondhand qualities are embodied by Zhen, whose destiny seems preordained from the moment she appears; even the vocal performance from Awkwafina, a fine match for Black’s energy, suffers a little from having already heard her play cartoony characters in The Bad Guys, The Little Mermaid, Migration, Raya and the Last Dragon, Storks and Angry Birds 2. (For that matter, Black was just in Super Mario Bros. last year.) Kung Fu Panda 4 is better than a lot of those movies, but that’s a bit like being better than Kung Fu Panda 3: Nice to see, but mainly a distinction to be debated between grade-schoolers. By the time Zhen is re-arranging Po’s catchphrase into her own, extremely similar catchphrase and throwing to Jack Black covering another pop hit over the credits, Kung Fu Panda 4 has accepted its destiny: It will entertain children, and it will inspire another sequel. Call it DreamWorks zen.
Director: Mike Mitchell
Writers: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, Darren Lemke
Starring: Jack Black, Awkwafina, Viola Davis, James Hong, Bryan Cranston
Release Date: March 8, 2024
Jesse Hassenger is associate movies editor at Paste. He also writes about movies and other pop-culture stuff for a bunch of outlets including Polygon, Inside Hook, Vulture, and SportsAlcohol.com, where he also has a podcast. Following @rockmarooned on Twitter is a great way to find out about what he’s watching or listening to, and which terrifying flavor of Mountain Dew he has most recently consumed.