‘Panda Plan’ Review
Stars: Jackie Chan, Wei Xiang, Han Yanbo, Temur Mamisashvili, Shi Ce | Written by Meng Yida, Xu Wei | Directed by Zhang Luan
Panda Plan (aka Xiong Mao Ji Hua) opens on a highly meta note as action star Jackie Chan, played by Jackie Chan (Hidden Strike, Rumble in the Bronx) takes out an entire squad of terrorists while filming a scene for his latest film. After wondering if he’s supposed to be playing a superhero, he and his agent David (Wei Xiang; Full River Red, Too Cool To Kill) review a list of possible off-screen activities. That list includes a housewarming party at Stallone’s new mansion and a celebrity golf tournament.
Jackie passes on all of them to accept an offer from the Noah Zoo to adopt Big Babe, their media star baby panda. What they don’t know is that the leader (Han Yanbo; Monster, Give Me Five) of what appears to be the evil equivalent of The Untouchables has been offered $100,000,000 to pandanap Big Babe.
With his right hand man James (Temur Mamisashvili; The Wandering Earth II, Abduction) in charge, the mercs take control of the zoo, leaving Jackie and Big Babe’s caretaker Su Xiaozhu (Shi Ce; A Soldier’s Story, Frozen Surface) to keep him safe.
The fact that a cute baby animal is at the centre of Panda Plan’s plot makes it obvious that director Zhang Luan (Song of Youth, Give Me Five) and his co-writers Meng Yida and Xu Wei (Song of Youth) made the film with a family audience in mind. Unfortunately, they play it a little too safe and too cute, meaning that while younger children will probably be entertained, everyone else will probably be bored.
The biggest problem is that the film’s villains never feel like a threat to the heroes. They’re supposed to be an elite fighting force, and some of them do seem to know their trade. However, the ones we mainly see are portrayed more like The Three Stooges. They get stuck in air shafts, get their weapons taken from them because they’re too busy playing video games to notice their captives getting free, etc.
That’s compounded by a plot that seems unsure of what it wants to be. For the first hour, Panda Plan is a lighthearted action comedy with little on its mind beyond getting to the next stunt or joke. Then in the final act, it interrupts the action for a serious moment when Su reveals she might have to give up her job caring for the pandas due to her parent’s health. And then at the end, the film tries to go into tearjerker territory when the reason for the panda heist is revealed.
Both feel out of place and clash badly with the tone of the rest of the film. The final reveal in particular feels particularly off for several reasons and make the last scenes feel hollow. Maybe something like that plays better in China, but I can’t see it going over well in North America.
Panda Plan also goes way too hard on the kind of cute that will only appeal to the little ones. Apart from Big Babe, there’s a delivery robot named Tony with an animated face, friendly voice and penchant for telling the ladies how pretty they look that would probably get his programmer in trouble with HR in the real world. While the robot would have been annoying regardless, the panda might have had a bit more appeal if it wasn’t so obviously CGI and not a real animal. And that isn’t the worst of the film’s effects, a mother rhino and the warship that serves as the merc’s headquarters are particularly shabby looking.
For a man who turned seventy this year, Chan is still incredibly agile and athletic. And as long as the script lets him fight and perform the acrobatic stunts he’s known for, Panda Plan is at least mildly entertaining. Sadly, the decision to render all the film’s animals digitally means that rather than use the zoo itself as a setting for those stunts, the film quickly moves to a warehouse, which does give Chan and action director Lü Shijia (Police Story: Lockdown, Ride On) plenty to work with it’s also the kind of setting we’ve seen plenty of times before as well.
Overall, Panda Plan should appeal to kids and those who just want to see Jackie Chan do his thing, regardless of what’s happening between the action scenes. Others will probably find themselves playing with their phones when his fists and feet aren’t flying.
** 2/5
Well Go USA will release Panda Plan in select US theatres on October 18th.
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