Panda Plan (2024) audio

The actual requirements for me to watch a movie aren’t that high. It could easily be argued that I would be more picky about what I’m watching if I am watching with a crowd - mostly because I do honestly try not to make other people suffer through some of the real low-bar stuff I watch and still enjoy. Yeah, every now and then I’ll pick a Troll 2 stinker off the shelf and force someone to watch it so they know my pain, but most the time I’m more interested in everyone having a good time. I was left alone tonight, which means the universe was open to me - new, old, foreign, domestic, artsy or cookie cutter, nothing was out of bounds. After looking it all over, checking to see if there was any sales on the stuff in my backlog, and various other things, one movie tickled my fancy like watching a panda accidentally fall off of something. Hope you all like Jackie Chan - tonight we are watching Panda Plan.

Jackie plays himself - an action movie star, probably with a few embellishments in character for movie purposes - as a famous actor who adopts a panda. Dead serious, that’s the start of the plot of the movie - or at least part of it. See, it would be an entertaining enough movie watching Jackie try to go through the steps of learning to and trying to care for a baby panda and those hijinks like some sort of animal version of Baby’s Day Out, but the movie has other plans. A wealthy sheik-looking fellow really wants that panda for reasons unknown, and he’s willing to pay anything for it. Enter the villains of the movie - a outfit of mercenaries who will do anything - including kidnap a panda - if the price is right. Enter the conflict as we get team panda versus team money, and the absolute wacky stuff that happens in the process of the two sides butting heads. Oddly enough, the movie will probably take at least one turn that you don’t expect coming, so it might seem a bit cookie cutter but there’s some effort to it.

Acting is good, but I feel like I’m going to have to caveat a lot of this stuff this time around. This is more of a comedy Chan movie - I mean, arguably the guy always knew how to mix comedy into his serious stuff to begin with, but this one is definitely more interested in family-style jokes and zany moments then it is in delivering some super emotional character study. In turn, I think the actors do a good job for what is intended or written, even if at times what is there is kind of a bit shallow or cartoon-ish. It also means that some of the acting jobs might be a bit lost in translation - but I will say that about halfway through the movie I tried switching it over to the native non-English dub and it did feel a lot better that way, even though I could only trust the subtitles as to being accurate in what they were saying after doing so. Either way, both sides did a fine enough job, but it feels much more integrated the other way, which does help with some of the action beats and physicality of parts.

Characters are pretty trim. Outside of one twist, there isn’t really much of a character development situation going on here, and at that point it’s not even really development since there is no build, just a reveal that makes your opinion potentially change. They do give a bit of backstory moment between two of our leads, but for the most part people fit their role as expected and don’t do much to break out of it. This could be potentially annoying to folks, as there’s a lot of Jackie fan-boying going on through the movie between the bad guys and Jackie (which feels a bit reasonable considering action-junkies probably would hold the guy whose broken more bones then most of us could name doing stunts in his films to a high marker), but it does feel in character when you remember the movie isn’t trying to be super serious. Still, there is probably more character building in family flicks like Shrek or Kung Fu Panda than in this one. Before anyone tries to look into it - those movies were picked out of random as first thought in my brain selections, not because they have anything to do with this movie, although the panda connection is a happy accident.

Normally something like this, I don’t really have a ton I can talk about with costumes. The little movie action scene at the front does get to provide some extra style, As does an outfit or two from the bad guys whose stand out more than just standard military garb (such as our bad lady, or our bad boss who at one point has something that strikes me as very Thai martial arts gear, although I’m really not well versed enough to say it is or if it’s a different brand of fighters uniform/gi). Beyond that, it’s a lot of modern outfits that all feel fitting for what you are watching. Characters will also look more beat up as the movie goes on, which is a bit of a nice touch of continuity, and you won’t really be getting characters confused with one another even amongst the band of misfit mercs.

Effects work is mixed here for sure. I’ll start it off by saying I’ve seen far worse, and most the stunt work and practical stuff is great. There’s a couple hits there with the stunt folks that had to hurt, even though I’d like to imagine that it was probably done safe within reason. There’s a few squibs in the movie section at the front end, and a pretty neat animated motorcycle opening credits scene that leads up to it as well. We also get some muzzle flashes and the likes - and all of this stuff is pretty decent, but you know there’s something coming if I called it mixed earlier. You may have guessed it, but most the times it misses is with animals. I’m honestly believing that not a single animal in this movie was real (until the footage of pandas in the end credits). Most of that is just because a lot of the animals are farther away and not really interacted with, so it’s suspected they aren’t but they could be and just perhaps not comped in with enough crazy detail that it completely sheds that uncanny feel. Other times, like with the panda, it’s up close and it’s CG and the hands or actors are pretty noticeable with it not being there. For what it is - which is to say not something that really felt like it set out to be super-crazy money sunk into it like some Marvel flick - I think it’s really passable. For people that have a strong reaction to things being noticeably fake, probably not so much. That said, they do a good job with both the panda’s eyes and it’s little limb motions to make it look really cute, even if that means it’s a cute little digital not convincing panda.

Audio is fine, balance is fine. I do feel the movie is a bit more smooth feeling with the dub I can’t understand, but the English dub is still decent enough it shouldn’t really impact things too much - and I will admit that at times what was dubbed flowed a lot nicer than what was subbed at the bottom of the screen. It’s also worth pointing out that regardless of the sub options, there’s actually at least three different languages going on in the movie some degree, so either way you’d probably need to do a bit of reading if you didn’t understand them all, even though a lot of the mercs will just speak in English regardless of the dub. I feel like I’ve noticed that in a few different international movies - like in the old Godzilla: Final Wars where literally only the one guy speaks english the entire movie. Part of me wonders how much of that comes down to so much of the rest of the world being multilingual compared to the folks who are rolling of English - but that’s a rather irrelevant side tangent. For the thinking folks, I’m going to go with don’t judge a book by it’s cover - but also strongly point out I feel like the main goal of the movie was fun and entertainment, and any sort of stuff you pick out of it about responsibilities, dreams, greed, or the wrong action for the right intentions probably is a very much “on you” sort of thing.

I had fun. Yeah, it’s not necessarily the best in all ways, and it could probably go in the popcorn filler category where you watch it once and forget the movie exists, but it wasn’t bad. It was cheerful, tried to do what it set out to do mostly successfully I think, and just has a few spots that are rather weaker then most the rest. If you came into it with the expectations of just watching a goofy Jackie Chan movie, you’ll probably have fun. If you were expecting some major-budget action masterpiece, you might be less prone to liking it. Mileage will vary on this one, and I might be in a minority or slight majority with my thinking considering IMDB has it at only 5.1, but if you find yourself going through a lot of these reviews and agreeing, I think you too would find it’s an entertaining time to spend a night relaxing to. And yes, I did laugh at the farting panda. Farts are my kryptonite.

@IMDB