Neil Sharpson's Blog, page 2

A seal of great value

As ever, Autumn’s golden-russet oncoming heralds the arrival of the Barnes and Noble preorder promo. As it ever was, as it ever shall be.

Barnes and Noble are running a preorder promo from Wednesday, September 3 through Friday, September 5.

B&N Rewards members will get 25% off preorders, and B&N Premium members will get 25% off, plus an additional 10% discount. Becoming a Rewards member is free and can be done online with the code  PREORDER25.

And would you look at that! It seems I have a book coming out in six days time!

Shortstember: Aladdin the Series

Hurrah! It’s back. Yes folks, this year September fell at a time when I’m not currently sweating a deadline like a hoor in church having taken on far too many writing projects.

I have been sitting on doing a review for Aladdin the series for what feels like forever because I was being good and waiting for the series to pop up on Disney Plus. Unfortunately, it’s not on there and it’s starting to look like it never will be. This is pretty shocking because the series was one of the biggest successes of Disney’s TV division in the nineties, running to an utterly staggering 86 episodes. Nobody seems to know why, either.

Some have suggested that Disney were worried some of the episodes haven’t aged particularly well, or that Genie’s pop culture references risked copyright infringement or simply that Dan Castellaneta’s royalties would be prohibitively expensive. Well, whatever the reason, I am forced to review this series from memory. That’s right. I am reviewing these episodes entirely, and perfectly legally, from my own perfect memory from thirty years ago. And the screencaps I’m using? Drawn by me. From my own memory. Allll nice and legal like. Got it? Good.

The series aired between 1994 and 1995 and takes place between Return of Jafar and King of Thieves. And if you’re wondering “how the hell did they crank out 86 episodes in two years?” it’s probably best not to think about it too hard.

But it probably helped that a whopping eight studios worked on this thing, which, if I know nineties cartoons (and I know nothing else) means that the animation consistency will be scattered over a ten mile radius.

The series is very episodic and doesn’t really do arcs so I’m just diving in and picking out episodes that sound interesting to talk about.

Season 2, Episode 6- One Enchanted Genie

Wha Happen’?

This episode opens with recurring villain Abis Mal (Jason Alexander), now paired with a…servant (?) named Haroud Hazi Bin (James Avery) having just successfully stoled Genie’s lamp from the palace in Agrabah. And it shows how long I’ve been out of the game that my first thought was “oh shit! So he’s Genie’s master now?! What stakes!”

But no, as I obviously should have remembered, Genie is free by this point and the lamp is now just what he sleeps in. There’s a funny bit where Haroud grouses that Abis Mal raised the alarm by treading on Abu and we then see Genie racing across the desert yelling “LAMP THIEF! MONKEY MASHER!”

Abis Mal manages to escape with the lamp, however, leaving Genie miserable. Which, hang on, didn’t Genie hate living in the lamp? Why is he so nostalgic for it now? I dunno, maybe the housing market’s gotten a lot worse. I can understand that.

Pictured: The average Dublin renter.

But Genie perks up when he realises that as soon as Abis Mal rubs the lamp, Genie will know where he is and kick his ass. But Abis Mal is so paralysed by trying to choose his first wish that he takes ages to rub it, leading Genie to wail “why won’t he rub my lamp?!” like a one night stand frantically waiting by the phone for him to call. Anyway, Abis Mal finally decides on a wish (a new hat) and Genie flies away to confront him only to come across a street urchin who has discovered a bottle with a genie.

These characters are introduced so fucking abruptly I cannot tell you. It feels like a different episode got randomly spliced into this one. Anyway, the girl genie is named Eden and she endears herself pretty quickly I gotta say. When Dhandhi, the urchin, makes her first wish for a sandwich, Eden flat out refuses to let her squander a wish like that and instead tells her to wish to never go hungry again. And that’s honestly heart-warming. Genie instantly falls in love with Eden and tries to impress her by also granting Dhandhi’s wishes but that just makes Eden pissed at him for muscling in on her turf. Their competition results in a stack of pepperoni pizza a mile high (guys, you do know that’s pork right?) which draws the attention of Abis Mal.

Once Eden realises that Genie already has a master (wait) it turns out she is super in to him. Dhandhi tells her to go for it and they agree to a date.

Eden shows up at the palace dressed to the nines and having switched skin colour…

…and they have a magical evening dancing amongst the stars. But, Eden feels her bottle being rubbed and promises Genie she’ll be back in a flash. But, when she returns to Dhandhi she finds that Abis Mal has the bottle and is her new master. When she doesn’t return, Genie assumes he’s been dumped and goes back to Aladdin who suggests that they continue their search for Genie’s lamp. While looking like he is off his face on something.

“Okay guys, for this scene we’re going to draw his eyes in a way to suggest that he has Bush Baby ancestry.”

They find Abis Mal and are shocked to see that Eden is now under his control. Genie goes on a furious tirade, accusing her of secretly working for Abis Mal the whole time to trick him (“the kid was a nice touch!”) which is just fucking bananas. Dude, you’re a GENIE. YOU KNOW SHE HAS NO CHOICE HERE.

Wow. Why is Genie voluntarily working with Jafar here?
What an asshole!

Haroud effortlessly incapacitates Aladdin and tells Abis Mal to wish for Eden to imprison Genie at the bottom of the ocean. “Why is Haroud even working for Abis Mal when he is infinity times more competant?” is a question, sadly, that will not be answered in this episode.

After granting this wish, Eden apologises to Aladdin and he’s all “hey, no, I understand, you literally have no free will I don’t blame you” because, y’know, Aladdin’s not a fucking idiot. Abis Mal’s second wish is, hang on, let me get this word for word: “make me the biggest tough guy ever, a cosmic one! I want to blow up things and, eh, possess MEGA BRAIN ENERGY!”

So she turns him into a kaijiu and he starts trying to stomp Aladdin. But, Eden gets a message to Genie telling him how to escape because, while Abis Mal wished him to the bottom of the ocean, he didn’t wish him forever. Genie shows up, high on love, and he’s quickly able to undo Abis Mal’s wish and turn him back to normal size. So Abis Mal uses his final wish to transform Aladdin and Genie into cockroaches so that he can stamp on them. But, Abu grabs the bottle and tosses it to to Dhandhi who wishes that Abis Mal’s wish not come true and Eden instead turns Abis Mal and Haroud into cockroaches. When Dhandhi points out that she didn’t actually wish for that Eden shrugs and says “freebie”.

Now THAT’S customer service. The little extras.

Dhandhi decides that she’s going to use her last wish to free Eden, but says “I only wish we could always stay together” and wouldn’t ya know it? This means Eden has to stay with her and she and Genie can’t be together. For some reason. But she reminds Genie that they have eternity and that she’ll be free for a date in a century or so.

“You had me at “one day this child will be dead’.

How was it?

You know what? Not bad at all! It helps that this episode has an insanely high quality voice cast, like, my God. But the writing has this absurdist streak running through it that got more than a few guffaws out of me and the animation is zippy and surprisingly fluid. Yeah, we are off to a great start! Let’s see if that lasts (not foreshadowing, I am flying completely blind on this. I have no idea what episode I am going to…remember…next).

The elephant in the room…

Hey folks, new episode has dropped. This go round we talk about Johnson and Friends, an Australian show for tots that aired in the nineties and that features grown ass adults in fuzzy animal costumes. What could be more wholesome?

C’est la vie…

In this installment of Now That’s What I Call Nostalgia we talk about the educational, entertaining and often deeply, deeply weird French series Once Upon a Time…Life.

Moomins on the Riviera (2014)

The Moomins are a topic that I feel I understand less the more I try to get my head around them. I tackled another Moomin film, Moomin and Midsummer Madness, around ten years ago so I should have been ready for this. And yet, here I am, looking at this film all…

A brief refresher, the Moomins are a multimedia franchise created by Finnish author Tove Jansson that encompasses picture books, novels, short stories, TV shows, movies, theme parks and a comic strip written and illustrated by Jansson herself. The comic strip that inspired today’s film, Moomins on the Riviera, began in 1954 and ran until 1975. This was actually the second Moomins comic strip, the first having appeared in a left wing newspaper but which failed because the readership considered the Moomins to be “too bourgeois”, because even in the late forties there were people who needed to touch some fucking grass.

So what’s it all about?

The series features things called Moomins doing stuff.

I can’t really get more specific than that.

Sometimes they don’t do stuff. Sometimes they just chill.

First off this movie gave me one hell of a nasty shock. I’m watching the opening credits with beautiful vistas of Moomin valley which perfectly recreate Jansson’s signature style when who do I see?

Now, you might be thinking “holy shit that’s a cool name” and it is. But see, I know this motherfucker, and he’s not Patrick Stewart working incognito and half-assing his alibi. Picard worked on The Bots Master, a TV show we covered on the podcast and which is currently my choice for worst cartoon show I have ever seen. Which puts him squarely on my shit list. But, this movie is so utterly at odds tonally with that show that I have decided that Picard was just led astray by bad men. Or that he’s matured and grown as an artist, who can say?

Anyway, the Moomins and all their forest friends are having a midnight party around a bonfire, dancing and playing music before the inevitable sacrifice to the Wicker Man. We have Moomin, Moominpappa, Moominmomma and Moomin’s girlfriend the Snorkmaiden.

Yes, she’s clearly also a moomin.
No, I don’t know why she doesn’t have “moomin” in her name.
No, I don’t know why Tove did that to us.
Yes, it keeps me up at night.

Unfortunately, the light from the bonfire confuses some passing pirates which causes their ship to run aground. The pirates abandon their ship along with their prisoners, Mymble and Little My. Okay…so. The Mymbles are recurring characters in Jansson’s oeuvre. According to Wikipedia, the word “mymble” comes from a “slang word used by Tove Jansson’s circle” which I think is code for “lesbian street argot”. They’re red-headed girls who are all related and these two are sisters and the youngest one, Little My, is a threat to every living thing on Earth. And they hang around the Moomins for no particular reason. Got it? Okay.

So, this movie is not in any damn hurry to get anywhere. In fact, despite being a very svelte hour and thirteen minutes, it moves at an absolutely glacial pace. For example, the pirates abandon ship, leaving Little My and Mymble to drown. A typical screenplay would then have the Moomins notice the sinking ship, mount a rescue, save the Mymbles and then carry on from there. Not Moomins on the Riviera, which waits until the next morning, has a long scene where Moomin has to choose between helping Snorkmaiden practice her play, go fishing with his buddy Snufkin or go swimming with Moominmomma. This doesn’t have any payoff. It doesn’t lead to anything. It’s just (if you’re feeling generous) a low-key, low-stakes, slice of life story beat or (if you’re not feeling generous) wasting your god-damned time.

Only then do they notice the sinking pirate ship and Moomin swims out to rescue Mymble, which earns him the ire of Snorkmaiden. Because, obviously, a real boyfriend would let her drown before his eyes. That’s a little something called “respecting your relationship”.

Anyway, Moominmomma suggests that they strip the pirate ship of any treasure they can find.

“And if any pirates are still alive, cut their throats and take their boots. That’s the law of the sea, it is.”

They find fireworks, a chest full of seeds, a chest full of gold and a load of magazines. The pirates arrive and take back the gold, but leave them with the rest. The Moomins read the magazines and become enchanted with the Riviera, and decide to go on holiday to escape the vicious grinding rat-race of their daily lives.

The Moomins set sail in a small row boat, with Little My tagging along. In the middle of a storm.

They wind up stranded on a desert island. Nothing much happens here except that a box drifts ashore full of foul mouthed bugs who the Moomins gather up and put in a sack. If you’re coming away with the impression that this is less a story and more a series of vignettes linked by vibes and dream logic, that is not an unfair take.

Anyway, that night Moomin and Snorkmaiden are sitting out on a cliff bemoaning the fact that they’ll never reach the Riviera, when suddenly a nearby coastline lights up and they realise the Riviera is literally next door. So, that was easy.

The rest of the movie is really just slice of life shenanigans as the Bohemian Moomins upset the stuffy affluent ways of the Riviera elite. Moominpappa makes friends with an artist named Marquis Mongaga who wants to give up being rich and live like the poor Moomins because then he’ll be a real artist.

Mongaga sculpts elephant statues and Moominpoppa helps him dump a statue of the local governor in the river and replace it with one of his own.

Meanwhile, Snorkmaiden tries to fit in with the wealthy denizens of the Riviera. She tries her hand at the casino and ends up winning big and starts hanging out with style icon Audrey Glamour and playboy Clark Tresco and trying on fancy clothes in the boutiques.

Why does she look more naked wearing clothes than when she’s naked?

Moomin gets so jealous of Snorkmaiden hanging out with Tresco that he, of course, sits down with him and tries to work through their issues in a mature and constructive…

“I am going to murder this guy.”

Sorry, Moomin chooses to CHALLENGE TRESCO TO A DUAL for breathing in the direction of his woman and ends up beating him unconscious with the butt of a sword.

All these eccentric shenanigans and violent assaults makes the manager of their hotel realise that the Moomins are not members of the aristocracy like they thought (flawless logic there, lads) and they get evicted from the hotel and are landed with a huge bill for the room. But Snorkmaiden pays the bill out of her casino winnings and then just gives the rest of her vast fortune as a tip to the hotel staff because it’s just, like, money, man.

It’s cool how money doesn’t matter as long as you have vast amounts of it.

The Moomins decide that rich people are trash and they had best be off, but before they go they try to help Mongaga find homes for his elephant statues. They gift one to the Mayor, only for him to realise that they were the ones who tossed the Governor’s statue in the river and order their arrest.

But, they sic the foul-mouthed bugs on the police which causes a massive brawl to break out and the Moomins escape back to their lives of decadent bourgeois hedonism.

They sail back to Moomin Valley, but get caught in a storm and have to jettison pretty much everything they brought with them from the Riviera which symbolises…you get what it symbolises. And the movie ends with nothing of consequence having really been achieved but it looked nice and the vibes were chill so who cares really?

Moomins.

***

Scoring

Animation:  16/20

Beautiful backgrounds and absolutely flawless translation of Jansson’s style.

Leads: 11/20

As always, Moomin is a perfect blank slate of a protagonist except now we know he has murder in his heart which is good for an extra point or two.

Villain: N/A

Supporting Characters: 12/20

“Most of the best intentionally funny lines and best unintentionally funny weirdness comes from the supporting characters.” As true today as when I wrote it a decade ago.

Music: 14/20

A wonderful, charming mixture of Nordic folk and fin-de-siécle French music that suits the subject matter like a glove.

FINAL SCORE: 63%

NEXT UPDATE: I am taking off August for holidays and other writing projects but I’ll be back on September 5th with a new review and to launch Shortstember 2025!

NEXT TIME: Look, as long as they finally do Taskmaster justice, that’s all I ask…

Runs in the family

My brother has done a video ranking every Dad in the Disney canon, check it out.

@smameann

Best Disney Dads! Ranking 30 of the Dads from the Disney Animated Canon! My list is a bit arbitrary, so who would you have added instead. Part 2 is next. #disney #disneydads #fathersday

♬ original sound – smameann

@smameann

Part 2 of my ranking of the Disney Dads from the Animated Canon. See part 1 on my channel. I made this Tier list online so you can try it yourself here: https://tiermaker.com/create/disney-animated-canon-dads-18333903 #disney #disneydads #ranking #fathersday

♬ original sound – smameann

Sharpsons and Ranking Disney Things. Name a more iconic duo.

Lu Over the Wall (2017)

Okay, I gotta be careful here. I did an almost complete 180 on my opinion of it in the process of writing the review with the result being the most schizophrenic thing I’ve ever written on this blog.

“Mouse. You know that’s not true.”“Yeah, you’re right, picture of a map I’ve been talking to for thirteen years.”

My point is, I’ve been holding off on writing this review just in case I have a similar reversal in opinion on Lu Over the Wall, but I’m pretty certain that my feelings on it are settled:

I think this is a mildly charming (if frustratingly unoriginal) “lonely boy makes friends with supernatural creature” story that is thoroughly undone by disastrous visuals and animation.

This is entirely subjective. I’m not saying the art style is bad per se. I’m just saying I hate it with every fibre of my being.

Also, at times it’s pretty fucking bad.

In the small fishing town of Hinashi, Kai Ashimoto lives with his divorced father and his grandfather. His father is trying to get him to knuckle down and study because exams are around the corner and jobs in the town are scarce. His grandfather, by contrast, is terrified of Kai going near the sea and spends his days making umbrellas. In his spare time, Kai writes music and posts it online which attracts the notice of two of his classmates, Kunio and Yuho, who try to convince him to join their band. Kunio is the son of a local priest and is forbidden from playing rock music, so the band have to rehearse in secret on Ningyojima, an island off the coast of the town where they’re forbidden from going.

See, historically, Hinashi has had beef with the Ningyo, half-human half fish creatures that, like the merfolk of Western folklore, seduce and enchant sailors to their doom. Unlike the merfolk of Western folklore, we must assume they have great personalities.

“I’m sho shexy!”

Kai reluctantly joins the band and, during their first rehearsal together, hears a mysterious voice singing along with them. On the boat ride back the trio run afoul of some illegal fishermen but are rescued when a mysterious shape swimming in the sea enchants the water and overturns their boat which causes Kai to drop his phone.

Fortunately, the phone is returned to him by a little mermaid named Lu who swims through his window in what looks like a solid body of bright green piss.

So this is one of the choices that makes me unreasonably unhappy with this film. Every-time Lu does her water-bender schtick, it transforms the water into a neon green that, I’m sorry, makes it look like Gatorade piss. I don’t know why they chose to do it that way. I do not like it.

Lu begins to follow Kai around and even helps him come first in his swimming exam. At the next rehearsal Kai reveals Lu to the other band members and it turns out that listening to his music causes Lu to grow legs and dance and sing like a chipmunk on helium.

So. You may be thinking “wait a minute, lonely Japanese boy, adorable little mer-toddler who becomes infatuated with him and grows legs to come on land, this sound awfully like a certain other film.“

Yes, Elim Klimov’s searing anti-war masterpiece Come and See, obviously, but apart from that?

Yeah, when I made the Ponyo joke at the end of the last review, I didn’t realise how close to the mark I was. My first instinct was to be generous and assume that Miyazaki and the creators of this film were drawing on the same Japanese folktale but apparently Ponyo‘s story is largely original in which case, yeah, this feels like it’s walking right up to the line of plagiarism. It’s not a complete rip off, but there’s a lot of similarities, including the mer-child having an overly protective father and the climax involving the town being flooded and the townspeople being rescued by sea creatures. Apparently the original conception for the film was that Lu would be a vampire (there are holdovers from this in that the mermaids in this movie are vulnerable to sunlight and the people are afraid that being bitten by them will turn them into fish) and I honestly think that would have worked so much better. The movie would have then avoided comparison to Ponyo which it desperately needs to do because this movie is no Ponyo (and I say that as someone who considers Ponyo minor Miyazaki at best).

Firstly there’s the obvious inferiority of the animation. Now, I will say this, I don’t like Lu’s animation but it’s certainly not bad. In fact, it moves with a wonderful fluidity that reminds me of early Flesicher cartoons.

But it achieves this by basically making the character models as simplified as it can get away with. There’s very little detail, zero variation in line-thickness, almost no sense of weight or mass and it feels kinda amateurish.

Another way in which Lu falls short of its inspiration is in the relationship between its two main characters.

Sosuke and Ponyo love each other but in the way of two very small children who just adore hanging out because each one thinks the other is the coolest. Kai and Lu though?

I’m really not sure how we’re supposed to read this relationship. It’s nothing blatant or anything. But there’s a scene of Kai immediately after meeting Lu and he’s wandering the streets with this dumb faraway look on his face and it kinda reads like “he’s just met the girl of his dreams”. But then we get scenes of him showing her around town and she’s basically a tiny, barely verbal toddler and…eesh. Like I say, nothing you can point to and say “slap the cuffs on ’em” but it feels off.

Anyway, the band perform at a local festival and Lu’s existence is revealed to the town and her singing causes the whole crowd to start dancing. Lu becomes an instant celebrity and Yuho’s grandfather, who’s a big muck-a-muck in the local business community decides to reopen his old merfolk themed amusement park on Ningyojima which shuttered because…this town hated merfolk with a passion before this moment so I don’t know why he thought that was a viable business model. That’s like…putting Barack Obama Plaza in Alabama.

Yes, it’s a real place. Great burgers, actually.

Yuho gets upset about Lu stealing the spotlight and runs away. This coincides with lots of weird ocean shenanigans like fish skeletons crawling on on land and Yuho’s father, the mayor, suspects that the merfolk have kidnapped her and a wave of anti-merfolk hysteria starts sweeping the town. The mayor locks Lu in a warehouse and threatens to expose her to sunlight which of course will kill her because she is a mermaid.

Kai learns from Kunio’s father that the people of the village used to worship the merfolk but that one day a mermaid was left out to die in the sun (for some reason) and that triggered a terrible curse.

Meanwhile, Lu’s father, who is a big shark man in a suit, hears her cries of fear and comes to rescue her, almost bursting alive in the sunlight.

Both Lu and her father are trapped in a massive iron dome by the townspeople but the curse has been triggered and now the whole town is in danger of being drowned in bright green gatorade piss.

Kai, Yuho and Kunio team up to rescue Lu and her father with the help Yuho’s grandfather (who, as mentioned before, is rich as balls and owns a helicopter). Once they’re freed, Lu and her father decide to let bygones be bygones and call all the merfolk to help evacuate the town. But, it takes too long and the merfolk are exhausted and left out in the sea as the sun rises. But, fortunately Kai’s grandfather, who has renounced his merfolk hating ways, arrives with a load of umbrellas which the merfolk use to save themselves. Kai tells Lu that she’s his friend and the movie ends with a big dance party, the universal symbol of “let’s just end this thing for God’s sake”.

***

Most movies would be better with vampires. But this is probably the movie that would be most better with vampires.

Scoring

Animation: 07/20

Not technically incompetent but ugly as fuck.

Leads: 10/20

Not an original idea in its head, this movie.

Villain: N/A

Supporting Characters: 12/20

Meh.

Music: 13/20

Kai’s band has a couple of bops.

FINAL SCORE: 53%

NEXT UPDATE: 24 July 2025

NEXT TIME: Moo Moomins Moo Problems

New Podcast Episode!

Hey folks, sorry for the wait, but we think it’s worth it! Our epic ninety minute look back at the iconic (in)famous Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers!

Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)

I had a good cringe not so long ago when I stumbled on my old list of Top Ten Non Disney Animated Movies.

Some of the choices I stand by but jeez, I’ll probably have to re-do that list entirely. Or will I? Are listicles even a thing anymore? Are blogs? Is anyone out there reading this who’s not a bot? Hello? Hellooo?

Anyway, existential dread aside, one of the big surprises for me was that 2014 Mouse apparently put 2008’s Kung Fu Panda on the list, a movie I think I have seen maybe once and have never had the urge to watch again. I have no idea why I did that. I feel like the years must have Ship of Theseus’d me into a completely different person because I cannot imagine that movie provoking that strong a reaction in me, either positive or negative. And I know that this is definitely a “me” problem. These movies are, structurally, very very good. Like, just put together magnificently well. I get the praise for them. Mostly. Some of the more rhapsodic critical responses to this movie I find a little baffling. Particularly the praise for the visuals. Again, they’re very good. But I came across one review (from a critic who’s opinion I rate very highly) who actually claimed that Kung Fu Panda 2 was the most visually beautiful film Dreamworks had made up to this point in their history.

Uh…fucking WHAT?

If you haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda, it tells the tale of Po, a chunky boi panda voiced by Jack Black who is obsessed with Kung Fu and who, through the power of slapstick and comic shenanigans, becomes the Dragon Warrior, a legendary hero to an ancient China populated by various species of talking animal. Kung Fu Panda 2 begins with a flashback told in a gorgeous shadow-puppet style. In Gongmen City, the royal peacocks who ruled the land invented fireworks but the prince, Shen, began using gunpowder to make weapons. His parents, naturally concerned, consulted a soothsayer who prophesied that if Shen continued dabbling in the dark(powder) arts he’d be defeated by a “warrior of black and white”. Shen overheard this and well, you know how pandas are almost extinct? Yeah, apparently it was this asshole’s fault. When Shen comes home his parents are all “what the fuck?” and exile him (good plan) along with his army of wolf warriors (noooooo, don’t let him keep those).

In the present day Shen has constructed a doom fortress to conquer all of China and sends out his wolves to raid the nearby villages for metal.

One of those local villages is Po’s where he is now the leader of the Furious Five, the hero team consisting of Tigress, Snake, Mantis, Crane and Monkey (which are all of course actual styles of kung fu, which is cool). They roll out to fight the wolves and the battle goes well for them until Po catches sight of a red eye symbol on the leader’s armour which causes him to have a PTSD flashback to being abandoned by his mother. The wolves escape with the metal and Po decides to go and see his adopted father.

So, I really do have to give credit to Dreamworks here, for this series (and, thinking about it, in general): they understand what a sequel should be. There’s no re-setting here. Everyone hasn’t forgotten that Po’s now the Dragon Warrior and they aren’t treating him like a screwup like he was in the first movie. And, as the fight scene demonstrates, he is now a genuinely amazing fighter. His abilities haven’t been nerfed just so we can get back to status quo. I approve.

Po visits his dad, Ping, a goose voiced by James Hong who I now remember is my favourite character in these movies. He’s at once hilarious and really, truly sweet in how much he loves his son. Ping reveals to Po the shocking truth that he is, in fact, adopted which is such an obvious cheap retcon for the sake of drama. No way you can tell me that was planned from the start.

C’mon! They look practically identical!

Meanwhile, Shen makes his move and takes back the city of Gongmen from the Council of Kung Fu Masters who are its current rulers. Shen is a formidable fighter but is no match for the council’s leader, Thundering Rhino. He does, however, have a big fuck off cannon, which levels the playing field (as well as Thundering Rhino). Damn, this bird just does not give a fuck about endangered species.

Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) gets word of this and dispatches Po and the Furious Five to Gongmen to use Kung Fu to defeat this new weapon which defeats Kung Fu. When Po points out a slight logical flaw in that plan, Shifu tells him that all things are possible with inner peace.

Insurance scam. Calling it now.

Meanwhile at Gongmen, Shen learns that there is still a panda out there and that he’s headed right for him. Shen is one of the elements of this movie that gets the most praise and yeah, absolutely, this is a great villain. Gary Oldman gives a fantastic performance and the character hits a great sweet spot of being fun, creepy and at times even sympathetic. When Po and the Five arrive in the city, they manage to free the Kung Fu masters but Po chokes in the battle against Shen when he sees the red eye on his plummage which triggers another flashback. All the flashbacks are animated in traditional style, and they are some gorgeously animated PTSD. Top tier. Shen uses this opportunity to destroy the palace and escapes with a load of cannons.

Tigress, who recognises this is kinda becoming a thing, takes Po aside and demands to know what the hell is going on. He refuses to tell her and they fight for a bit which gives Tigress a chance to demonstrate that…yes, she absolutely should have been chosen as the Dragon Warrior, this should not even be up for debate. Mid-fight Po finally breaks down and admits that Shen killed his parents and Tigress moves in for the kill.

She hugs him, but tells him that she can’t risk her friend’s life and that he’s gotta be benched for this op. Po, obviously, is the protagonist, so that’s not going to happen. He crashes Shen’s factory alone which inadvertently leads to the Five being captured. Shen taunts Po saying that his parents never loved him.

He also shoots him in the stomach with a cannon. See that’s a villain, right there. Emotional and literal devastation.

Po ends up floating down a river where he is found and cared for by the soothsayer sheep who told told Shen’s parents the prophecy that set all this carnage in motion. So, in a way you could say she’s the real villain of this story.

“Heh heh heh. I hate pandas.”

Would you believe I only learned that was Michelle Yeoh doing this review? She’s honestly amazing in this (and I say that as someone who thinks her English language work is honestly…a little overrated. Please don’t tell Spouse of Mouse, she will kill me and it will not be a good death).

The soothsayer sadly tells Po that they are in sitting in all that remains of the panda village. She says that she prophesied that Shen would be stopped by a warrior of black and white but that she could not have foreseen what he would do next.

“Uh…what’s your job again?”

Po finally remembers what happened to his people, but he also remembers all the good times with Ping and the Five and realises that the tragedy of his childhood does not define him or his future.

He journeys back to the city and we get a really funny scene where he stands dramatically on a rooftop and calls Shen out…who can’t hear him because obviously he’s miles away on a distant rooftop.

Anyway, there’s a big battle and Po and the Five are joined by the surviving kung fu masters and Shifu himself. Everyone’s kung fu fighting and those cats (and ursids, insects, reptiles, primates, birds etc.) are fast as lightning. Shen brings out the big guns (literally) and Po demonstrates that he has found inner peace. I mean, this dude is full of inner peace. He’s got so much inner peace it’s seeping out and becoming outer peace. And so he is able to re-direct cannonballs in mid-air.

Shen’s ship is destroyed and at last the peacock comes face to face with the Dragon Warrior. Shen is aghast that Po was able to find inner peace despite everything that Shen took from him. But Po tells him that he learned to let go of the past and Shen should too. Shen instead chooses violence and ends up getting crushed by a giant cannon.

Po realises that some people are just assholes and returns home to his father and his friends.

***

“It’s okay, it happens to lots of critics.”“Sorry, sorry. It’s not you, it’s me.”

I feel so goddamned embarrassed here. It’s a good film! It’s a really good film! It just doesn’t quite do it for me. I dunno why. I’ll give it a good score, don’t worry.

Scoring

Animation: 16/20

Obviously (to me at least!) it’s not in the top tier of Dreamworks but very strong.

Leads: 17/20

It’s such a hard feat to pull off a successful heroes journey, doubly hard in a sequel.

Villain: 19/20

Pure text book excellence. Writing, performance, design. Fantastic.

Supporting Characters: 13/20

I’ve always found the five kinda bland and one note. This movie pushes them even further to the background with the exception of Tigress (Angelina Jolie will never be a good choice for voice-work, sorry) and Mantis who gets some good lines.

Music: 14/20

Decent, nothing amazing.

FINAL SCORE: 79%

NEXT UPDATE: 10 July 2025

NEXT TIME: Not gonna lie. This looks like Ponyo was left out too long in the sun.

Burial Tide Giveaway!

Hey folks! If you’re based in the US, Goodreads are giving away 20 copies of my new horror novel, the Burial Tide!

The offer is running until the 29th of June and you can enter HERE.