stephendaxter

Kung Fu Panda 3 is the third film in the successful franchise and caps off what is a surprisingly quite enjoyable series of films. The first film was a huge success and loved by families and kids everywhere, the second one for me was a slight step down but still alright and this film was actually a good amount of fun. At the third film is where you start to see most franchises getting very repetitive, and while the film follows a similar base plot from start to finish, it still offers a new experience that sets it aside from other animated films. The plot was basic, easy to follow and enjoyable, the humour was there, and the character performances were once again very fun.

In terms of the plot, as i mentioned it was very easy to follow, it had the good guys, the evil threat, and other real world themes that make the film relatable to people watching. Having the main target audience of young kids, they didn't need to make anything complex, they just had to please them and give something for the families to enjoy, and they did that well. It does have sections that are not as eventful as the rest of the film but overall the pacing was at a nice steady pace. Humour-wise the film delivered, i laughed a number of times throughout the film, it did have its fair share of humour that was directed at the kids but overall there was a good amount to keep me engaged. At this point, you know whats going to happen and how the film is going to end, but you won't enjoy it any less.

The thing i love the most about this franchise is the voice talent involved, and how every actor/actress gives each character a very unique personality that makes them all very unique. You already have Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu, Kate Hudson, and David Cross in there, so by adding Bryan Cranston and J.K Simmons it only makes the film so much better. Simmons especially i thought was fantastic as the villain and he was a really cool villain.

So in the end, this was quite an enjoyable film that is a lot of fun i think for the whole family. Easy plot, good performances, and some humour make this a pretty good film. It's just now dawning on me that this was a better movie than Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice, would i rather watch BvS? Of course, but in terms of a film that succeeded in doing what it set out to do, this takes the cake.

7/10

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, the sequel to the 2002 highly successful hit comedy is finally here with the whole family returning for another wedding. Like most belated comedy sequels, i wasn't expecting a whole lot from this film, i expected it to play off what made the first film successful and be relatively average. And that is more or less what we have here, in some aspects it delivers fairly well and in others it really doesn't. One of the things i liked hearing going into this film was that the whole cast was returning and that it was being written by Nia Vardalos who also wrote the first one. It gave me some hope that it would have the same overall feeling, but it kinda didn't in the end.

Unlike the first film, it didn't feel like a 'Greek' movie for around half of it, it was more of a modern Romantic Comedy with some Greek comedy and set-pieces here and there. Structurally the films plot was kinda all over the joint. There were a lot of side- plots in this film and to be honest, there wasn't really a main plot in the film. It kinda jumps around between the romantic stories revolving around Nia, her parents, and her daughter. Neither one took control of the film and the focus kept swapping throughout. And when the film did depart from the Greek aspect and started heading in the Rom-Com direction they just organised a couple of Greek jokes to remind you that this is still a Greek themed film, and maybe that's where Nia Vardalos writing the film helped it but also kinda let it down. But what i really loved was just by watching this film you could tell that she loves this property, she loves the character Toula and she really didn't want it to fail, and i love when a film is written with so much passion.

Now, the comedic aspects of the film were definitely there and there were some very very funny moments. There wasn't really a steady flow of comedy throughout the film, it's sort of delivered in sections here and there. Pretty much, whenever it focused on the Greek aspects of the film there were plenty of jokes, most of the time. And after seeing this film, i gotta say, there are quite a few good laughs..... if you're Greek that is, but if you're not and you don't understand a lot about Greek culture, there really isn't much here for you. Being Greek is really what made a lot of the comedy in the film actually funny. And in terms of who was delivering the comedy, the supporting cast (the entire extended family) were the ones delivering ALL of the jokes, and i mean ALL of them. Unfortunately, Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, and the daughter Elena Kampouris didn't contribute to the humour like at all, not even once from memory. They tried, they definitely tried to have them be funny but it just didn't work at all.

But, one thing i have to give the film 100% credit for is what jokes they did provide. Like all of these comedic sequels it would have been incredibly easy to just re-use jokes from the first film and hope people laugh at them as much as they did in 2002. But this film didn't go with any obvious joke callbacks to the first film, which i loved and more comedy sequels should do. I thought for sure they were going to make Nick and Angelo have Ian say something wrong in Greek, and they didn't which was great. They went for new material so i admire what they did.

In the end, it isn't nearly as good as the original film, there was less of an authentic Greek feeling, and it kinda lost itself in the Romantic Comedy elements. In terms of the plot it was very unfocused jumping around a lot. But it does deliver on the comedy and there are plenty of laughs to take out of this film, mainly if you are Greek.

5/10