Mighty martial-arts panda Po (Jack Black) may still be portly, yet in every other respect, his Kung Fu Panda 2 is a fleeter, funnier beast than its 2008 predecessor. The complicated emotional ramifications of adoption are the prime focus of this follow-up, which concerns Po's quest for identity and inner peace, goals that are maturely posited as only attainable through confronting, and then letting go of, the past. Po's search for self takes the form of a showdown against Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), a genocidal peacock who murdered Po's birth parents, and who's now determined to conquer China with the use of a fiery cannon.
See www.villagevoice.com for full review
