Kung Fu Panda

Can a tubby little panda become a dragon warrior? Yes he can. If he wants it badly enough and never ever gives up. This is a children's movie and a fairly absorbing one.  The scrappy little underdog keeps trying when everyone is telling him to quit. And everyone turns out to be wrong. The kung fu training seems more than a little sadistic to me and the battles go on too long (how long can you watch two guys punching and kicking each other? Pretty long apparently) but the animation is beautiful and the script is literate.

The characters are voiced by actors who know what they're doing (Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane) The evil kitty beats up the good kitty and is in turn defeated by an overweight bear. How cool is that? And in the end there is no secret. There is only you. Your judgement, your will and your determination. That is the message of the movie and boy I've seen worse. I've seen lots worse. The faithful panda defeats the monster kitty and saves the village as we always knew he would. He doesn't have to make noodle soup with his dad anymore, he can go around the world fighting bad guys.

The truth is noodle soup is pretty important. We need guys who can make noodle soup at least as much as we need guys who can take off your head with a bamboo pole. Maybe more.