Kung Fu Panda 3: How to ruin a perfect trilogy.

A film that I consider as a red flag culturally is undoubtedly the third instalment of the "Kung Fu Panda" saga, for many reasons that made me not support it over time. Again, I extend my hand to keep you company in reading why I consider the third DreamWorks Panda movie as a complete nonsense to everything that was built prior to its release.

Nefarious tonal change

Starting from the beginning of the film, we already notice a big tonal change in how the events in the plot will be narrated. Unlike the sequel, which is a complete work of art as we are accustomed to DreamWorks with its sequels, this third film, which had the job of closing the arc of Po as a Dragon Warrior, completely skidded, throwing overboard everything that had been implemented previously, and we only visualized again the idiocy and emotional and spiritual inexperience of Po as at the beginning of the first film of the saga.

Particularly, one of the things that really got on my nerves while watching it over and over again was the drastic change in tone/environment from the previous one. In the sequel, despite keeping the characteristic humour of DreamWorks animated films and especially that of Kung Fu Panda, it knew when to touch the emotional and complex point of our protagonist with his identity problem. The plot of inner peace and its development is what enhances that film with a more serious and even darker way of narrating than many others and makes it perfect.

Now, all this that I highlight as perfect in the second instalment is something that we totally lose in this one. Speaking of Kai, the villain of this story, we are told his "motivations", which are... Being bad, and that's it. A completely empty character writing, the same with Po, being the protagonist, who, far from closing his character arc as a teacher or whatever, simply ended up getting there with a power up through the pandas, who in two minutes learned to use their powers, another one of the many scripting conveniences of this story.

Since a large portion of the audience did not like the dark tone of the sequel, this decision on DreamWorks' part to write and create the trilogy's conclusion only resulted in a one and a half-hour feature film ridiculing Po's lessons learned and the development of the remaining characters, along with making the audience look foolish at the notoriously low level presented.

The worst of the saga

I am aware that the fourth film of this movie has already been released; however, almost a year after its release, I still haven't seen it, so, until now, my opinion will remain: Kung Fu Panda 3 is BY FAR the worst of the whole saga.

It may be a little bit of me to consider it a "Red Flag film," but the truth is, I genuinely see it that way. Many people give it a place, which, in my perspective, it doesn't deserve in the least given what was done in the first and second films, both of which were excellent in what they wanted to tell. It's funny that DreamWorks usually stumbles considerably when it comes to releasing their third parts of each saga to the movie-going world, since the same thing happened with Shrek, which I also consider that its third part is so inconsequential and bad that you can skip it and there is no significant change narratively speaking within the logic of their stories.

To close the article, my great recommendation is that you watch this movie without any expectations (if today in the middle of 2025 you have never seen Kung Fu Panda) and simply decide to see it out of commitment and respect for the great saga that is made mainly by the two great movies that lead it. It could have been the perfect trilogy of all DreamWorks, but they were afraid of success. Still, we are left with great works of art. I say goodbye to this movie, as Master Shifu said, finds your inner peace.