The story of how Po [Jack Black] becomes the Dragon Warrior – despite the skepticism of the Furious Five Masters, Crane [David Cross], Mantis [Seth Rogen], Monkey [Jackie Chan], Tigress [Angelina Jolie] and Viper [Lucy Liu] – is one of the year’s surprise hits, critically as well as at the box office.

The film’s DVD release is full of bonus features and, in a special two DVD package, includes The Secrets of the Furious Five. This twenty-five minute tale finds Po facing his greatest challenge – teaching a class of easily distracted young bunnies the art of king fu [Master Shifu, still voiced by Dustin Hoffman, seems particularly tickled by the situation]. To get the class’ attention, Po relates stories of how each of the Five – Crane [David Cross], Monkey [Jaycee Chan], Mantis [Max Koch], Tigress [Tara Strong], and Viper [Jessica Di Ciccio] – had to overcome such flaws as impatience [Mantis], Compassion [Monkey], control [Tigress], and so forth. Even Master Oogway [Randall Duk Kim] puts in an appearance.

Most of Secrets is filmed in the beautiful 2D style seen in the prologue to Kung Fu Panda, with CG used for scenes that feature Po and his class – and the clever cover art from the two DVDs is designed to be one larger picture when placed side by side.

There is a wealth of features on each DVD.

Kung Fu Panda: Audio Commentary by Co-Directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne; Meet the Cast; Pushing the Boundaries [improvements in CGI]; Sound Design; Kung fu Fighting Music Video by Cee-Lo; Mr. Ping’s Noodle House [watch a master make noodles from a simple ball of dough]; How to Use Chopsticks [this time for sure!]; Conservation International: Help Save Wild Panda; Dragon Warrior Training Academy; Printables and Weblinks [DVD-ROM], and Dreamworks Animation Jukebox.

Secrets of the Furious Five: Po’s Power Play: Learn to Draw [Character animators show how to draw their respective characters]; Dumpling Shuffle [which bowl is the dumpling under]; Pandamonium Activity Kit [DVD-ROM]; The Land of Panda: Learn the Panda Dance; Do You Kung Fu [demonstrations of basic kung fu forms]; Inside the Chinese Zodiac; Animals of Kung Fu Panda [and how they relate to their namesake forms of kung fu], and What Fighting Style Are You?

Grade: Kung Fu Panda – A

Grade: Secrets of the Furious Five – B+

Grade: Features: Kung Fu Panda – A+

Grade: Features: Secrets of the Furious Five – B+

Final Grade: A

The summer of the Comic-book movie continues this weekend with the launch of Wanted an adaptation of Mark Miller’s over the top graphic novel about a wimp who gets turned into an amoral, masochistic Super Villain. I had never heard of this book until the movie was announced last year. So I saw the film cold. I walked out of the theater being mixed, on the one hand Russia action director Timur Bekmambetov channels his inner Woo to bring us some amazing action sequences on the other the acting is all over the place. No matter how much Hollywood wants it to be true, James McAvoy doesn’t have the “It” factor. He’s ok in small doses but he just lacks charisma. Last year Timur floored me with the amazing, over the top Day Watch – if you are an action fan, you must see this. But all the elements that made Day watch so amazing, don’t work in Wanted.

Maybe it’s because he’s trying too hard to be noticed here. Timur obviously wants this to be his calling card film and grab Hollywood by the balls and scream “Pay Attention to me!” The problem is he’s saddled with McAvoy and a bad story featuring a bunch of characters that not only do you not like, but actively HATE. This is where reading the comic book was a mistake. As I said, the film left me feeling ambivalent, reading the book made me want to shower. The book is that vile and disgusting. Like Timur, it’s Miller trying so desperately to be controversial. The problem is there’s no story just a bunch of panels with people saying fuck you, killing and raping everything in view. He’s not making the social statement that he thinks he is. He’s being a ten year old little boy who discovers the word fuck for the first time.

The Producers of Wanted wisely just kept the name, the characters and some of the attitude from the book for the film. Instead of trying to join a league of Super Villains, Wesley (McAvoy) is recruited by the hot and dangerous Fox (Angelina Jolie who is obviously enjoying herself in this) to take his father’s place in a Fraternity of Assassins lead by the enigmatic Sloan (Morgan Freeman).

The plot, what little there is, is used to showcase Timur. In Day Watch there is this eye popping moment where one of the female characters tears through Russia in this hot Red Viper doing some amazing things including driving straight up a building and crashing through the top floor. Incredible moment in the film, he repeats it in Wanted. Only this time it’s Jolie driving the Viper in a spectacular chase sequence. The problem is, I didn’t care about the characters or what was going on and I already watched this scene in Day Watch, so it lacked the wow factor. In the first half of the film there are several CGI cartoon shots of McAvoy in slow motion with his face jiggling all over the place. It was neat once, but by the 3^rd time I was ready to see something else.

Wanted isn’t nearly as vile as the book and it’s certainly watchable, but it’s the first Comic Book film of the summer that fails to hit its mark.

Final Grade C-

EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally Posted 6.29.2008

Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman’s character overdoses and John Travolta’s character has to administer a shot of adrenaline directly to her heart? That is, roughly speaking, the effect that Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted has on an audience.

Wesley Gibson [James McAvoy] is a cubicle slave with an impressive, but meaningless title, and a boss who takes particular delight in demeaning him. He has a surprisingly good-looking girlfriend and a cheery best friend – who are sleeping with each other. Then, one night when he’s in line at a pharmacy to buy medication for his anxiety attacks, a gorgeous, tattooed goddess of a woman informs him that his father was the greatest assassin in the world; the number two guy killed him the day before and is just… over there!

Wesley, it seems, has inherited his father’s skills, but has been blithely unaware – mistaking his hunter’s/assassin’s traits as anxiety attacks. The goddess is named Fox [Angelina Jolie] and he is to become a member of The Fraternity – a society of assassins headed by the dapper, dignified Sloan [Morgan Freeman]. Of course, he’ll have to be trained – by a host of assassins with names Like The Repairman [Mark Warren] and Gunsmith [Common]. Then he will hunt and kill the man who killed his father.

Based on Mark Millar’s graphic novel of the same name, Wanted seems to be little more than a framework to showcase Bekmambetov’s dexterity as a director. Instead, it turns out to be a showcase for McAvoy’s transformation from wage slave to a man in charge of his own life – and for Fox to discover the real meaning of integrity. At the same time, of course, Bekmambetov does, indeed, throw everything he’s got into action sequence that take the work of people like Louis Leterrier and the Wachowski Brothers and ramp it up to a level so high that the bar is no longer even visible.

Except for a very few scenes, Wanted makes the proverbial bat out of hell look like a tortoise on its back. The fight scenes are agile in ways that combine John Woo and the Shaw Brothers with Peckinpah and the Wachowskis; the chases are well into the land that exists beyond ridiculous, and the gun play is beyond even that.

Bekmambetov hits us so quickly with pans and zooms and smash cuts and dissolves and changes of pace that we go along for the ride – even though the whole thing is as insubstantial as smoke [and we get some of that, too]. This is what summer blockbusters are supposed to be – smart and absurd and gracefully jagged adrenaline delivery systems. On that level, it is superb!

Final Grade: A

Pandas are perceived as being laid back, relaxed and just enjoying munching on bamboo shoots. Kinda like your fat, old uncle Kenny – only bigger and with fur. Casting a panda as a kung fu master is one of those contradictory images that just automatically provoke smiles and chuckles – if not hysterical laughter. Which is why Kung Fu Panda had to be more than just another animated movie. In order for it to work, the film would have to find a way to make us believe – in with excellent CGI – that Po [voiced by Jack Black], a poor panda working for his father in a noodle house, could make that leap to… wait for it… Dragon Warrior!

In anticipation of the evil snow leopard Tai Lung [Ian McShane] breaking out of the most secure prison in the country, Master Shifu [Dustin Hoffman] has trained the Furious Five – Masters Crane [David Cross], Mantis [Seth Rogen], Monkey [Jackie Chan], Tigress [Angelina Jolie] and Viper [Lucy Liu] – in hopes that one of them would be chosen to fulfill the prophecy of the Dragon Warrior and obtain the Dragon Scroll that would take them to an almost exalted level of martial arts mastery. Through a fluke involving fireworks and a chair, Po finds himself chosen to become the Dragon Warrior by Master Oogway [Randall Duk Kim] – and fierce lessons must be learned by all of them so that, when Master Oogway’s time comes, the Dragon warrior will be ready to face Tai Lung.

Kung Fu Panda is a small miracle in both character and animation development. The script, by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger [from a story by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris] packs as much character into the film as action [and there’s a lot of action!]. Watching Po and his father, Mr. Ping [James Hong] deal with the changes in Po’s life are fraught with genuine emotion; the disbelief of Shifu and the Furious Five combine to make things even harder for the poor Po. The animation of the martial arts sequences add to the depth of the film with their intricacy and clarity.

Directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson have done a masterful job of matching voices to characters [Jolie and Liu especially, bring it – and Rogen, counter cast as the tiny Mantis gives his character a surprisingly supple quality] and staging both moments of frenzy and unexpected beauty [the passing of a key character]. Kung Fu Panda is a movie that might have been wholly summarized by its title, but instead is so much more. Thanks to the factors mentioned plus the unexpected range of Black as Po, this is a classic in waiting.

Final Grade: A

Roger Zemeckis has created an amazing world in Beowulf – the CG adaptation of the epic poem we all suffered through in high school English. Here, though, we get a loose adaptation that assigns human motivations to the major players – including the decidedly inhuman Grendel and his mother. Does it work? Just often enough make the expensive 3D process worth it.

The legend of Beowulf [voiced here by Ray Winstone] is a classic tale of heroism. When the sins of King Hrothgar [Anthony Hopkins] come back to haunt him – in the person of the destructive monster, Grendel [voiced by Crispin Hellion Glover – honest, that’s how his credit reads] – Beowulf sails to his rescue with his best friend, Wiglaf [Brendan Gleeson] and a dozen followers. Of course there are unexpected circumstances: Grendel has a peculiar relationship with Hrothgar; Grendel’s mother [Angelina Jolie] is not only a monster in her own right, she’s a shape-shifting seductress who promises Beowulf a kingdom if he’ll help her replace her son.

Writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery have attempted to add depth to the epic by giving the characters reasons for their actions. Beowulf is a glory-seeker – a seeming oaf who has the will, the strength and the guile, not to mention the hubris, to actually have achieved the feats of which he boasts. Hrothgar is a once ambitious man who was willing to do whatever it took to gain a kingdom. Grendel is a dim, lonely creature who is easily manipulated by his mother [his dying is strangely sad] – who is the last of her kind and desperate to not be alone.

First, I have to say that the film looks great on an IMAX screen. Beowulf’s CG/motion capture animation is as much of a breakthrough in today’s animation as Polar Express was a few years ago. The colors are vivid [and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen vivid grey, trust me]; the water and fire effects are leagues ahead of what has gone before. From certain angles, the near-photo real characters are amazing [though from other angles, they still look flat and occasionally unprepossessing]. The 3D effects are literally astounding!

Even if Beowulf was an awful film, it would still be worth your fifteen or sixteen bucks to see it on an IMAX screen. It is not, however, an awful film. Instead, it is just slightly above average.

The film’s design is beautiful, especially when it comes to the contrasts between the cold Nordic winter and the interior of the Hrothgar’s gigantic mead hall; between Grendel and his mother; between the fair Queen Wealthow [Robin Wright Penn] and her fat, now bumbling husband; the dragon [no spoiler – it’s in all the trailers] and its human form, etc., etc…

The action sequences are, for the most part quite brilliantly staged. When the naked Beowulf battles Grendel [Grendel wears no armor, carries no weapon – Beowulf want it to be a fair fight!], the animation is as fluid and real as anything seen in an Ultimate Fighting match. The climactic battle between Grendel and dragon may soon be eclipsed – that’s how fast advances in CGI are made – but right now, it’s the best CG battle I’ve ever seen.

Where the film misses the mark enough to gain only a marginally positive rating from me is in the scenes that don’t involve carousing or battle. In these scenes, Zemeckis uses angles and lighting that would work beautifully for a live action film but which make his animated characters seem flat and perfunctory. As my nephew put it, “the film doesn’t work when they go all emo!”

Even so, there’s enough good stuff here to give Beowulf a marginally positive review even before the incredible animation and 3D. When you factor in the addition of these elements, and seeing them on an IMAX screen, it does become well worth your hard-earned cash - especially if, like me, you’re into CGI and 3D

Final Grade: B-