The movie was visually appealing, had plenty of humor and the right amount of "drama". This film finds us once again following the life of Po the Panda (Jack Black) who is now a more experienced member of the 5 (I guess that would now equal 6 but they never say that). He is known as the Dragon Warrior and is very loved and respected within the neighboring village(s). The movie begins by showing us a tale regarding a royal family of Peacocks who have a son that (for reasons I won't divulge) ravages a nearby village and killing many. Once he gets home from this "deadly crusade" his parents are disgusted with his actions and banish him forever. The banished Peacock comes back many years later which is where our movie is set. This Peacock "Shen"(Gary Oldeman) is so full of anger, greed and hatred that he biulds a weapon that shoots "fire & metal" and plans to use it to take over all of China. Po is called to Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) and he watches as the Master displays the value of Inner Peace. He tells Po that he will need to find Inner Peace to become a Master and explains it took him many years. As Po is talking with Master about this he gets interrupted by Tigress (Angelina Jolie), telling him a neighboring village is being attacked. They arrive to find a pack of well organized wolves who are raiding this village for anything and everything made of metal. Po and the 5 fight them off but Po see's a red symbol on one of their sleeves that causes him to lose his concentration which allows one of the wolves to hit him and knock him to the ground (and of course they escape). Po goes into his old village to visit his dad the Goose Mr. Ping (James Hong) and asks him where he came from. His dad reluctantly tells him he was adopted and they show a short clip of the story as it is being told. This story does not have enough information to please Po so he knows he must learn more. Circumstances carry the characters to battle the evil Shen with this weapon. They are told that if this weapon is used it will kill Kung Fu, forever. Po asks Master how he is supposed to kill a weapon that kills Kung Fu with Kung Fu and receives a very interesting answer.
The 6 go forward to the battle. Along the way they use a boat for travel and as the others sleep Po has another vision including that same red symbol but in this vision his parents abandon and replace him with a Raddish that does better Kung Fu than he does. This angers him so he goes on deck and begins hitting, kicking and head bashing things. Tigress comes down and tells Po to practice with her and they go back and forth a bit. He finds that no matter how hard he hits her, she feels no pain. She explains that she spent 20 years becoming numb to pain and Po, of course wants to be this way but would never spend 20 years on it. They arrive in the city where Shen and his wolves are making the weapon and ammo. The battle begins...
This was a fun and visually stimulating family film. I did not like it as much as the first film but liked it enough to watch it again. I am very glad that the original cast reprised their rolls (Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Lucy Lui, Seth Rogan, James Hong, and David Cross). I was even more excited about the additional guest voices from Danny McBride, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Haysbert and Victor Garber! I highly recommend this film to pretty much everyone that enjoyed the first one.
I rate this 8.5 out of 10
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