Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

6/10

Starring the voices of

Jack Black
Bryan Cranston
Dustin Hoffman
Angelina Jolie

Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Kung Fu Panda 3 didn’t wind me up as much as I thought it would, this third part is filled with easy to swallow gags, action packed fun and a nice family friendly theme, but the story was dull.

One thing I love about this franchise which makes me give it a 6/10 is the way the writers and director never leave any one of the movie open ended, every movie can stand alone and you don’t have to wait years to see the end of a tale begun in part 2.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson returns as director (although she didn’t direct the first installment) and Melissa Cobb returns a producer of the franchise.

For me the first movie in the series did the job for me and the follow-ups to this Dreamworks 3D animation film, has never quite lived up to the first.

It is like in every film Po’s dragon warrior status is being tested and he has to upgrade to a new level of dragon warrior Kung Fu master to defeat the new foe. In this one he had to step up by going between worlds (spiritual and mortal) to become a chi master.

The protagonist (Kai) this time is a blast from the past way back in the past of Grand Master Oogway. Kai has decided to take the chi of everyone into himself, to make himself stronger. Kai’s quest brought us face to face with Po’s father and the other Pandas who have been tagged, “no longer in existence”. This is something we can relate to from the second movie when Lord Shen led an army of wolves to exterminate the panda population to avert the prophecy that "a warrior of black and white" will defeat him.

We learned that some Pandas survived and are living together in a secret colony. When Po’s biological father Li learned of his son’s existence, he went out looking for him and soon found him, taking him to their colony by promising to teach him to master chi.

Kai and Oogway met with a Panda colony way back when where Oogway learned the way of the chi, which Kai wanted for himself and Oogway had to banish him to the spirit world. Kai found his way back to the mortal world after being locked away for more than 500 years and he is continuing his quest to absorb all the chi and be stronger than anyone else.

Deadpool (2016)

Deadpool (2016)

6/10

Starring

Ryan Reynolds

Directed by Tim Miller

Saying you will not enjoy this movie will be a blatant lie and standout as the understatement of the year, but I can bluntly say this will not be the best or top superhero movie for 2016, nor the best movie of the year either. Deadpool is cool, funny and action packed, but it was just there.

For the many who have seen X-men Origins: Wolverine, you will remember a Deadpool character played also by Ryan Reynolds take on Wolverine. In X-men Origins: Wolverine origins he was a mercenary with a mouth, but they marred the character when they decided to take away his mouth, giving us just a mercenary who died much too easily.

When they decided to make this movie with Reynolds also getting a sit in the producer corner, they decided to make this movie true to the comics. Fans will not be disappointed to see Deadpool break the forth wall, chatting with us the viewers and also be prepared to see him break the forth wall in a forth wall kind of like a sixteenth wall break.

One thing I fancied about this movie’s production is the amount of time and effort that went into the marketing. I can bet there are many who don’t know who Deadpool is, a friend of mine who followed me to go see this movie had to get a tune-up intro on who he was and why he was special. Now that didn’t deter him from sleeping off when the writers did a boring and long job telling us how Wade Wilson became Deadpool, but after that he was awake through the rest.

Back to the marketing, it was so well crafted and made to trend high on social media that even if you had no idea who Deadpool was, you will want to see this movie, maybe not in the cinema like the rest of us, but you will add it to your must see.

The movie has a grand beginning with some really funny open credits, then it introduces our anti-hero in a still scene that depicted that this guy, is not a nice guy.

Wade Wilson is a former special ops agent, who turned mercenary and choose to help those who can’t help themselves and also get paid doing it. He is in a serious relationship that was heading to the altar when he was hit with the sad news of cancer. He got an invite from a man who promises to take his cancer away and turn him into a hero.

He first turned down the offer, but not wanting to put his girlfriend through the trauma of caring for a cancer lover, he leaves her and meets up with this man, who introduces him to Ajax who turned Wade into an ugly looking mutant with accelerated healing superpowers and slight insanity.

Now hell bent on revenge and a cure to his ugliness, Deadpool hunts down Ajax. His hunt didn’t go unnoticed as Colossus and with his sidekick Negasonic Teenage Warhead, track down Wade and try to get him to stop his trail of killing in search of Ajax, which as you may have guessed didn’t work.

Now as I said, this movie is fun and action packed. You will not regret seeing this and I advise you do as Deadpool 2 (2018) is already in the works.