Kung Fu Panda - and Summer 08.

"At once fuzzy-wuzzy and industrial strength, the tacky-sounding Kung Fu Panda is high concept with a heart," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Even better, this animated feature from DreamWorks is so consistently diverting and visually arresting that it succeeds in transcending its storybook clichés. The tale has the consistency of baby pablum - it's nutritious and easy on the gums - but there's enough beauty and pictorial wit here from opening to end credits, enough feeling for the art and for the freedom of animation, that you may not care."

"By all means, gather up the little ones and take them to this perfectly pleasant, very good-looking, modestly funny, dispiritingly unoriginal variant on the nerd-with-a-dream recipe that's been clobbered to death in animated films for at least a decade now," writes Ella Taylor in the Voice.

Updated through 6/7.

"Taking as its source the same Hong Kong martial-arts films that inspired Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the new picture provides a master course in cunning visual art and ultra-satisfying entertainment," writes Richard Corliss in Time. "In a way, the live-action chop-socky films of the 70s were already animated. Their whirling, exhausting, body-punishing stunt scenes tested an audience's credulity; surely real people were incapable of these athletic graces. (But they were, because of the severe training the actors had undergone since childhood.) KFP has fun with the conventions of these old films, but it honors the ethic and dedication behind them; it's true to the Shaolin spirit."

"[S]urprisingly, it doesn't suck," writes Andrew Wright in the Stranger. "Chalk it up to either a newfound maturity or management being asleep at the wheel, but, somehow, someway, it achieves a low-impact playfulness that actually feels kind of... charming."

"Kung Fu Panda is not one of the great recent animated films," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. "The story is way too predictable, and truth to tell, Po himself didn't overwhelm me with his charisma. But it's elegantly drawn, the action sequences are packed with energy, and it's short enough that older viewers will be forgiving. For the kids, of course, all this stuff is much of a muchness, and here they go again."

"Over the last decade, the outpouring of Pixar-imitating CGI comedies about wacky mismatched animal pals (The Wild, Madagascar, Over the Hedge, Shark Tale, Surf's Up, Ice Age, Chicken Little, Open Season, etc) has occasionally felt like the output of an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters, all banging out more or less the same thing," writes Tasha Robinson at the AV Club. "But as in the famous thought experiment, the infinite typing monkeys may have finally produced their Hamlet, or at least as close to one as the genre will allow. Kung Fu Panda is yet another celebrity-voiced animal adventure, but it stands out from the crowd of similar films with its lightning wit and whirlwind brio."

"Gone are [DreamWorks'] usual penchant for garishness and lack of stylistic unity; the claustrophobic, sealed-in worlds; the horrible neon colors; the feeling that everything's been dipped in a hard plastic coating," notes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "Instead, production designer Raymond Zibach and art director Tang Heng, who spent years researching Chinese art and architecture (not to mention kung fu movies), have inserted vast, moody, misty landscapes, fanciful interiors and traditional Chinese colors (red and gold dominate) to give the movie an epic, expansive, ancient quality that's a real pleasure to inhabit."

"I love a surprise, even a small one like finding out that Kung Fu Panda was more likeable and fun than I might have expected," writes Jette Kernion at Cinematical.

"[W]hile Kung Fu Panda features its share of self-esteem pap, it's also quite entertaining and likable, as well as innocuously pleasing to the eye and sometimes even beautiful in a kitschy way," writes Nicolas Rapold in the New York Sun. "Maybe most important, the film, which opens Friday, is tricked out with spiffy fight sequences at prudent intervals. [Jack] Black dials down his shtick from abrasively foolish to gently amusing, and is backed by a warmly drawn batch of supporting critters."

"[I]n the inoffensively passable film's favor, Shrek-ish potty humor is nonexistent, and Black is right at home voicing the adolescently hyperactive and insecure Po, in large part because the boisterous panda is really a big, furry eight-year-old version of himself," writes Nick Schager at Slant.

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes.

Sara Vilkomerson presents the New York Observer's summer preview.

Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell consider Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Updates: "In the same way that Robin Williams's tiringly manic shtick suddenly got about 100 percent more tolerable when it was coming out of the mouth of the shape-shifting genie in Disney's Aladdin, Jack Black's triumph-of-the-fat-guy routine gets a much-needed shot in the arm with Kung Fu Panda, a new animated comedy about a very unlikely martial arts champion," writes Alonso Duralde at MSNBC.

"There is a great deal of slapstick in the film, and your tolerance for slapstick may ultimately decide whether or not you enjoy Kung Fu Panda, but much of these comic action set pieces are expertly handled, with inspired timing that Chuck Jones would be proud of," writes Craig Phillips.

Update, 6/7: "Jon Favreau is a solid director, and Iron Man's first ninety minutes are surprisingly tight," writes J Robert Parks. "And yet, the last half hour trots out every asinine cliche you can imagine." As for Indy 4, "The problem is that when history is treated as a library of images that a filmmaker can trot out for atmosphere, people are fooled into thinking that's all history is good for. Or even worse, that because they can catch the reference, they actually know something about history. As Neil Postman wrote, 'What shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?'"

Posted by dwhudson at June 6, 2008 6:42 AM