Film Preview: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2015)

Page Revisions:

(June 21, 2015) Original
(November 8, 2015) New Trailer (#2) / New Posters (#1-#3) / Page Redesigned
(January 24, 2016) New Trailer (#3) / New Posters (#4-#5)

Release Date:

January 29, 2016

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “Continuing his “legendary adventures of awesomeness”, Po must face two hugely epic, but different threats: one supernatural and the other a little closer to his home.”

Poster Rating: C- / B / B- / B / B

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Review: (#1) Amusing in a childish way, which is how this franchise sells to children even though its adult appeal is more tangible. (#2 & #3) The beauty of the second design versus the third is that while the third suggests this is a film about a tribe of pandas, the second features some gorgeous background detail giving it the slight edge in terms of quality.

(#4) This foreign design is among the better ones as it gives the entire design more active energy rather than passive posing. The baby panda on the pole gives it much of its joy. (#5) Fans of the franchise will be amused and it should come as no surprise that it works merely from a promotional standpoint even if it doesn’t quite have the depth of details other designs for this film do.

Trailer Rating: B+ / B / B

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Review: (#1) Two brief sequences make a fairly involving teaser for audiences already familiar with the setting and characters of the film. The shift from exciting action scene to slow character introduction is clunky and the entire thing ends amusingly enough, but the whole thing needs quite a bit more to truly sell the film.

(#2) The charm of the original films is somewhat present here, but it seems to have been left aside in favor of featuring more striking images of unusual pandas, young and old. These are, while cute, seemingly superfluous elements forced into a trailer to make it more appealing to kids unnecessarily.

(#3) Focusing on the familiar, the trailer sets expectations almost where they need to be, entertained, but not overwhelmed. That doesn’t mean that you can’t see the potential for the film in this trailer, it just seems locked behind the veneer of superficiality that the title character has been struggling against now for three films.