Long Live Kung Fu: 'Kung Fu Panda 2' Trailer 2

It starts promsingly enough. Picking up where the first film left off, this sequel zips and bounds and chops its way into your consciousness in the manner we've come to expect from nerd-rebel-provocateur Jack Black.

And then, amidst the one-liners and the body functions, it suddenly veers left into existential family identity reflection. In battling a new weapon being made by the evil Lord Shen (voiced with classic creepiness by Gary Oldman), our hero comes up against the question  that every four-year old asks: "where did I come from?" In his case, that leads to a running sub-plot of very intense scenes that in turn set up the Dragon warriors for a massive confrontation with Shen.

In other words, not your typical kiddie-cartoon feature. In fairness though, our panda hero doesn't lose too much of that bouncy snap-crackle of the first film, but the overall viewing experience is one of considerable duality. Which is understandable when one learns that director Jennifer Yuh's credits - as a storyboard artist - include the "Spawn" TV series and the nihilistic feature film "Dark City".

So, while this sequel won't outright creep you out, there is just enough of the "out there" factor to give more cautious parents some pause, especially if your kids are, say,  under 6 years old. Otherwise, its a pretty decent upgrade of a Hollywood franchise. All of the high-profile voice talent (Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan) does a great job, but Oldman as mentioned earlier, takes top honours, and Dennis Haysbert (the "Allstate" guy; not the "Mayhem" one) also invests his minor character, Master Ox, with palpable feeling.

Its a weird outing - for a big-budget animated feature, but an interesting one.

Pointy, But Not Sharp Enough: Red Riding Hood Movie Trailer Official (HD)

Just as pharmaceutical companies need to keep developing new meds - even as existing ones continue to hook millions (keeping the pipeline full); so Hollywood execs and producer types need to keep the new franchises coming.

With the multi-billion dollar Twighlight and Harry Potter franchises now about to head to the Hollywood stud farm, (forgive us the muddled metaphors), the search is well and truly on to find the " next big thing" to appeal to that highly consumptive tri-partite grouping of "tweens" teens and young adults. Thus Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the initial Twilight, has been roped in for what it is hoped will be the latest occult-romance-adventure mix that will bring them rushing into the theatres and buying  the merchandise.

You know the basic story well enough. hardwicke and screenwriter David Johnson (Orphan) take a stretch-to-fit approach that encompasses modern soap opera and teen dram cliches and toss in a bit of religious and mythological mumbo-jumbo in an attempt to thicken the stew. The attempt fails, and largely because none of the actors - Gary Oldman aside - have the goods to pull off that mix of simmering passion and calculating cool.

We've made some heavy weather of Nick Cgae's long meltdown, but Oldman, despite his presence in the aforementioned Potter franchise and Chris Nolan's Batman projects, has had his share of clunkers too. Add this to that list. His Father Solomon, the hotshot priest/warrior called in to help tackle the wolf is straight out of "Melodrama & Overacting 101" slightly reminiscent of his turn as a drug dealer/pimp in "True Romance" but nowhere near as fun to watch. (or maybe we've just grown older). Indeed, Red Riding Hood is an almost spectacular carnage of wasted talent, with the likes of Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, and even  - gasp! -Julie Christie (as Grandma) squandered before our very eyes

As an onscreen presence, Amanda Seyfried is hard to pin down. While she's not the dry husk that Kristen Stewart is in the Twilight movies, she never fully engages as an actress. She comes off as one of those kids at the back of the group on a field trip, occasionally catching bits and pieces of the monologue and display but essentially more tuned in to some other world of her own making.

The other star - the wolf - is a major disappointment visually. he producers should have hired the efx crew that worked on Benicio de Toro's Wolfman remake. This wolf looks more like a reject from the Tex Avery files. The use of the voice-over narrative, a dead-ringer for Twilight, is a further detraction.

Will Red Riding Hood become the Twilight of this decade? Hardly likely, but just  as the drug companies have a pill for every condition, and one more for the side-effects, rest assured that there'll be plenty more of these types of adaptations to come.