Kung Fu Panda 3

Director: Alessandro Carloni, Jennifer Yuh
Writers: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger
Stars: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman

Synopsis:
Continuing from the past two entries, Po finds out that he belongs to a bigger family along with an overbearing threat coming after him and his friends.

Review:
The animation is beautiful and the jokes still seem fresh and inspiring after three movies, a feat that not many movies can claim themselves. The voice acting is never dull and the addition of Bryan Cranston helps quite a bit.

I really did enjoy this, even if I had yet to see the second one. I feel like that could have helped my enjoyment a bit more, because the beginning was a bit of a rush to me, but it did seem to slow itself down a bit after the first 20 minutes or so. I really started to enjoy this film when Po goes back with his father to their panda village and he meets with all the other pandas.

The plot is simple, but honestly that is a strong point with it, it allows for a lot of characters to come up and shine. Especially when they introduce a lot of people in this entry. I feel like after this movie there's a lot of promise for even more entries to be able to be made and evolve unlike a lot of series around.

Rating: 4 ½ stars


Recommendation: A fun adventure for the whole family, and one that you don't necessarily have to have complete knowledge over the previous entries to enjoy. Worth the full price of admission. 

Alvin and the Chipmunks The Road Chip

Director: Walt Becker
Writers: Randi Mayem Singer and Adam Sztykiel
Stars: Jason Lee, Justin Long, Mathew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Josh Green, Kimberly Williams-Paisley

Synopsis:
Alvin and the gang don't like the idea of Dave getting engaged to her girlfriend, Samantha, because they believe that he'll leave them in the forest. So they decide to travel from Los Angeles to Miami to stop it.

Review:
This movie, is mainly just good for a distraction for your kids, For the most part it isn't that insulting, but at the same time not much happens in it that we haven't seen before. I've seen all four now, and the first one is at least good on keeping itself on track telling the story it's trying to tell and that's about it. The sequels, especially the squeakuel, just seem to try to keep the run time going by throwing in random pop culture references, some that I don't understand why they think they'd work. Like there's a reference with John Waters and Pink Flamingos in this one and I was just like, why? I think it's mainly to keep adults in the theater watching, but that's about as much thought as I put into this film.
The saving grace with this movie, and the reason why it's not my least favorite in the series, is the end. I thought the last 20 or so minutes of the film really made this film tolerable in a sense that I gave it an extra half star because of it. Mainly because there's some character development with it. It's not just the same characters doing the same stuff they've done for four films now, there's a sense that someone behind the scenes actually wanted to make a film the whole family can enjoy. Outside of that though it's just high pitch voices making the same old mischief that we've already seen before.


Rating: 2.5 stars


Recommendation: If you really want to see a movie the whole family can enjoy and you've either already seen Star Wars or think that's a little over the heads of your children than this really isn't the worse option out there. Honestly though if you just want to see this because you've seen the others, I'd say rent or wait for DVD.