Kung Fu Panda 3

At the start, Kai has stolen the chi from thousands of kung fu masters, including Oogway, and collects them as jade amulets which he then unleashes as jade zombies, or “jombies”.

DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 2” (2011) ended with a revelation: The biological father of Po (voice of Jack Black) is alive and living in a faraway panda Shangri-La. But while it lacks the wonder and nuance of earlier Pandas, there are enough new faces and wowing, Asian-influenced style to also keep parents amused for an hour and a half.

Voice cast: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Kate Hudson, J.K. Simmons, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan. In this adventure, Po is visited by his long-lost father (Bryan Cranston), which leads to their mutual discovery of a hidden kingdom of pandas.

Kai’s story is also too dense in background details, which makes it less interesting than Po’s engaging travels to the panda village, a fun montage of interacting with other pandas of all sizes and character quirks. He also gets a possible love interest in the fat and furry form of fellow panda Mei Mei, voiced by a sultry Kate Hudson.

The visuals are captivating but the star here, the reason to return for a third time to the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise, is Po. Only Po’s chi can stop him, if the panda harnesses it in time. When word of Kai’s evil quest reaches Po, the Dragon Warrior realizes he must master his own chi in order to protect it. And the only way he can master his chi is to know himself, which means learning to truly become a panda.

“Kung Fu Panda 3” has a moment or two for everyone, but no chance develop any character beyond a single dimension.

Instead of just overlaying a Chinese dub on the film, the animators have chosen to go back to the drawing board and remake all of the mouth movements and body languages of the characters in the animated film to coincide with the little nuances of the Chinese language and its traditional gestures. Po’s long-percolating mysteries of Po’s past are finally revealed, and the quest to defeat Kai forces Po to confront the prophecy Grand Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) made about him back in the first installment.

The comedic actor has always gone over well with young audiences, with bits of juvenile humor still a part of his over-the-top arsenal at age 46, and the pudgy, powerful panda named Po is one of his best roles. From witty dialogue to entertaining battles, “Kung Fu Panda 3” is a solid action comedy. Po’s look, personality and most importantly his soul is just totally Jack Black.

In a prologue, “Kung Fu Panda 3” wastes no time getting to the heart of its central conflict. Shifu, for instance, tells Po, “If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than you are now”.

“Kung Fu Panda 3“, a 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America “for martial arts action and some mild rude humor”.