Kung Fu Panda 2

I watched Kung Fu Panda 2. After the movie, I was confused whether I watched the movie because I wanted to see it OR because I wanted to try the cool mobile phone-scanning ticket printer.

The movie’s screening schedule wasn’t so convenient that if I will avoid buying the pricier, 3D seat (which often entailed serious migraine afterwards), I had to either skip taking a bath or come home the next day. My eyes weren’t so happy when I decided to buy tickets for the 3D version. 

The thing is I don’t really enjoy cinema in 3D. Instead of being realistic, they just look slightly ‘cooler’. It looked more like a diorama than a scene actually happening in front of you. I’ve seen movies especially made in 3D in Singapore and Indonesia. They were usually shorts and it’s there you actually experience having virtual objects thrown at you all the time and there is way more action than the dioramas in cinemas.

WHAT I THINK ABOUT KUNG FU PANDA 2:

It wasn’t completely a waste of time if I wanted to waste my time in the first place. Although I didn’t expect much art from a movie set in historical China where all society figures were zoo animals, I also didn’t expect shallowness. 

It is hard to imagine they are all Chinese. Photo from here.

A lot of animation films have scripts suited to cater to an extremely wide age bracket. That is how they become successful and appealing. If you watched those films as a child and watch it again as an adult, its almost as good as watching two different movies. KF Panda 2 (I can’t even be bothered to type in the full name all the time) wasn’t like that.

It was a little too shallow although they were parts that made me laugh. But when the laughter dies down, I go back to the flat, comatose state.

The plot wasn’t really as original as I expected. It is a self-identity crisis of an adopted Panda who is trying to save China. If the main character wasn’t a Panda, it could have been eyed for plagiarism. 

Of course, children will enjoy it. The laughs were healthy in the theater. The problem is I am in the state where I have high standards for film, where I consider it as a sophisticated art form, and although films like Toy Story and Meet the Robinsons satisfied my taste, KF Panda 2 did not.

I can’t really comment on the continuum of the story because I can’t fish out a memory of the first KF Panda movie.

THE MOBILE PHONE-SCANNING TICKET PRINTER

Second, the mobile phone-scanning ticket printer was cool. I have wanted to try it for so long and it was the perfect chance to do so. I was low on cash so I had to use a card and I certainly had nothing to do. 

What you would need to scan.

 

I learned along the way that you just go to their website, buy the tix and a code will be sent to the mobile number. It was supposed to save you from long lines. (Kind of funny because the website was extremely sluggish I could have saved a few seconds falling in line instead.)

Then you let their scanner scan the text message on your phone, voila! You have your ticket. Be careful though. The printer was manufactured with poor physics that it threw my ticket into the air. It’s embarrassing to chase a small piece of paper around.