Light spoilers for “Kung Fu Panda 4” ahead 

After seven long years of waiting, “Kung Fu Panda 4” made its debut on Friday, March 8. Expectations for the film were sky-high, especially considering director Mike Mitchell’s reason for the long delay was his team’s hefty goals — ensuring that its iconic protagonist, Po, is “always evolving and always trying to take the next step.” Unfortunately for fans, “Kung Fu Panda 4” is by far the worst in the tetralogy, with the Dragon Warrior’s “next step” more akin to a painful tumble down a long flight of stairs.

“Kung Fu Panda 4,” unlike the previous movies, does not focus on Po’s journey to perfect the art of kung fu, as he seems to have plateaued on that front. Rather, Po is tasked with the mission of finding an apprentice to replace him as the Dragon Warrior. However, Po becomes distracted when he encounters Zhen, a bandit fox, who informs him of a dangerous sorceress named the Chameleon with plans to take over the Valley of Peace. In his final adventure as the Dragon Warrior, Po travels to Juniper City and overcomes many challenges along the way — betrayal, doubt and most importantly, change.

The movie is obsessed with change; the Chameleon has the ability to take the form of any animal she wants, and Po’s character arc is supposedly centered around his changing identity. However, just as the Chameleon shapeshifts into a horrifying amalgamation of animals towards the end of the movie, the movie’s identity crisis is a misshapen cross between the nostalgia of the older movies and a poor attempt to refresh the series.

Callbacks involving earlier villains like Tai Lung, Lord Shen and Kai remind the audience that, yes, this is unfortunately the same franchise they remember and adore. At the same time, the movie ignores its worldbuilding from previous movies to further its own plot. For example, nobody in Juniper City knows about the Dragon Warrior even though Po saved all of China in “Kung Fu Panda 2.” As a result, the latest installment feels more like fanfiction, with writing quality to match.

A lot of the movie’s problems stem from the fact that its pacing is shockingly abysmal — key details are rushed through, major events happen seconds after each other and any ounce of Zhen’s character development is thrown out the window. An alarming amount of time is spent in an extremely unimportant tavern where we learn more about a pelican with a talking fish in its mouth than the main antagonist.

But even more importantly, the film’s poor pacing prevents the audience from connecting with Zhen, which is very concerning considering she seems to be the future of the Kung Fu Panda franchise. Her character is boring, stereotypical and quite obnoxious at times — the unengaging delivery of Zhen’s voice actor Awkwafina certainly doesn’t help. Tai Lung easily has more chemistry with Po than she does, and they only interact a couple of times. For a movie franchise that has made even villains lovable, Zhen is a major letdown.

Po himself doesn’t fare much better. “Kung Fu Panda 4” is desperate to give Po a new identity as a mature and principled leader, and it is ironically held back by the depth of Po’s growth throughout the first three movies. While Po was fun-loving and occasionally clueless in earlier films, he still cared deeply about those around him and was motivated by his desire to protect them. The nuance of that motivation is completely gone in “Kung Fu Panda 4,” where his only reason for doing anything is because it’s just the “right thing to do.” Po’s lines are split between blatantly stating his love of fun and food and transparently moralizing all over the audience, and neither are compelling. For all the fat jokes that the movie makes, Po is a disappointingly flat character.

“Kung Fu Panda 4” wants to emulate the thoughtful themes found in the older movies, but can’t commit to any of them for more than a few seconds. It wants to dazzle with tense but fun fight scenes, yet forgets that the audience does not care about the stakes. It wants to elegantly transition from one chapter of Po’s story to another but completely butchers the aspects that made him a likable protagonist in the first place. In its rush to accomplish too many things at once, “Kung Fu Panda 4” has forgotten how to let its characters breathe and have fun.

With this installment, the directors hope to seed enough interest in the continuation of the series to justify a few more movies. However, given the amateur pacing and one-dimensional characters, all audiences can expect are future pitfalls, making it clear that the franchise is quickly running out of steam. At this point, it might be best for everyone to say “skadoosh” to Kung Fu Panda and save themselves from the experience of watching an anthropomorphic chameleon suck the kung fu out of someone — much like how this movie sucked the soul out of the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise.

RATING: 1.5/5

This story was originally published on El Estoque on March 13, 2024.