Kung Fu Panda

Once upon a time, it was said that a time would come when Pixar Animation Studios, who seem turn turnout one great animated movie after another, would be challenged and rivaled by an unsuspected summer hit from another studio. Leave that feat to the awesomeness of a panda named Po. It looks like "Wall-E" has some competition this summer.

The story to "Kung Fu Panda" is nothing really new, but it is told so well as to actually pack an emotional wallop. And it never comes off as laughable, which in lesser hands could easily have happened. Speaking of laughs, there are many to be had here as well. "Kung Fu Panda" works on just about every level a family movie can. The cast features Jack Black as Po the Panda. The furious five, the most feared group of warriors in all of China, consists of Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross). Their master is Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), a furball critter (I'm not quite sure as to what I'm supposed to classify him as) who is a legendary teacher of Kung Fu. Escaped from prison and on his way to claim the Dragon Scroll, which will make him the all-powerful Dragon Warrior, is the good gone bad Tai Lung (Ian McShane). But first, he'll have to muscle his way around 400 pounds of panda to get to it.

"Kung Fu Panda" is a damn good time at the movies. This was the movie that Dreamworks Animation so desperately needed after the disappoining "Shrek The Third". With gorgeous animation, spectacular action, a great cast and the dramatic weight of an Akira Kurosawa film, Kung Fu Panda is one of my favorite movies of the year so far. It's unusual that two of the year's more impressive films comes from the animated department (the other being "Horton Hears a Who!"), but that's exactly how it's played out so far. With Wall-E just around the corner, this could be a golden year for animated films. A good sign considering in the last couple of years we've only had so few good ones to pick from.

Grade: A-