Kung Fu Panda 4

If the script was sharper or funnier and if the gags were better maybe you wouldn't notice, but it does feel like a lot of it is a bunch of people in recording booths doing some schtick and them animating around it.

The plot may be cursory — Po has to graduate to spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace and find a successor for his job as dragon warrior — but Black attacks it with knockabout zeal.

Caveats and niggles ultimately don’t dent the magnanimous-natured enjoyment. A lesser Kung Fu Panda movie remains vastly superior to most mainstream animated features.

The script is just as pallid. There’s lots of hackneyed comic repartee but no real vocal chemistry between the players, a trio of cutesy prepubescent hoodlums that may feel awkwardly familiar to anyone who’s seen Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon...

Whether there’s any kind of larger allegory here might be worth pondering -- though it might also be the real lesson is not to read too much into a series titled Kung Fu Panda.

It failed the wriggle test on my seven-year-old cinema date, who was squirming in her seat around the hour mark.

True, Kung Fu Panda 4 doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, with Po up to his old tricks of fighting and eating. But Mitchell keeps it feeling fresh, especially through the addition of Awkwafina and Davis.

The scenes aren't contributing to the story, so you have a film that is simultaneously frantic and slow.

Clocks in at a brisk 86 minutes, blending together a classic, soundtrack with a steady rhythm of adventurous wit. All of it is held together by Black, who plays in multiple entertainment genres and has produced an eclectic resume of hits and roles.

This latest bout of Panda-monium feels directly akin to the third film in the franchise, a perfectly enjoyable (if probably inessential) romp with Jack Black voicing a kung fu-fighting panda.