Grade: C

Except for an opening dream sequence, which is portrayed in ersatz antique art style, the computer-generated animation in this new DreamWorks picture is first-rate, with backgrounds of a mountainous Chinese countryside that are often strikingly lovely. It’s a pity that the script doesn’t measure up to the images. “Kung Fu Panda” is yet another tale of a misfit who follows his dream and succeeds by being true to himself despite the obstacles put in his way, and some of the twists it adds to the stale formula are a mite peculiar. Moreover the dialogue provided by writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger is distinctly short on wit, leaving it to the voice talent to add whatever punch they can—with only variable success. The result is just a middling entry in the animated kidflick stable, which in spite of starring another lovably roly-poly hero is certainly no “Shrek.”

In this case the young fellow the urchins in the audience are intended to identify with is a panda called Po (Jack Black), who serves as an inept waiter in the noodle diner of his father, a goose named Ping (James Hong). But Po’s real love is kung-fu, even though his tendency to clumsiness would suggest it’s a skill he could never master. That doesn’t stop him from going to a public ceremony at the great mountaintop temple where grand master Oogway the Turtle (Randall Duk Kim) is to identify the eagerly-awaited Dragon Warrior, a legendary appointment expected to go to one of the so-called Furious Five trained by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), a small but dexterous wolf. They’re Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Viper (Lucy Liu), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Crane (David Cross) and Mantis (Seth Rogen).

Of course, Oogway’s choice instead falls on stumblebum Po, whom Shifu and his students consider a hopeless case. And since word comes that the country’s most feared villain, the snow leopard Tai Lung (Ian McShane)—an orphan whom Shifu had trained from a cub years earlier but turned mean when he wasn’t chosen as Dragon Warrior—has escaped from a gloomy prison constructed especially for him, despite the presence of a thousand guards to prevent it, and is making his way homeward, the situation quickly becomes urgent. Can Shifu train Po expeditiously to take on Tai Lung? And will the secret of the Dragon Scroll that’s bequeathed to Po tell him how to win against such a prodigious foe?

Suffice it to say that Po proves far more proficient than anybody—including Po—ever expected (except, of course, for the prescient Oogway), and all, especially Shifu, learn an important lesson about not judging a bear by his pot-belly. But though the overall message to the effect that a person has to be himself is clear enough (and certainly unexceptionable), the way it’s delivered here is rather weird: the key to Shifu’s training Po in the niceties of kung-fu turns out to be his insatiable appetite for cookies and dumplings—something that, in era when childhood obesity has become a major health issue, is at the very least curious. And while one expects a lot of hand-to-hand combat in a martial arts movie, it can certainly be argued that there’s too much of it here, especially since it gets surprisingly nasty at times. Of course the extravagant combat is splashy and spectacular, but in animated form it’s no more impressive than the CGI stuff that’s being done in live-action fightfests nowadays, and both are ironically much less so than the no-wires, no-visual effects stunts that Tony Jaa does.

The overabundance of sock-it-to-’em action makes it even harder than it would otherwise be for the voice talent to shine. The best of the lot are Hoffman, whose sly, dry delivery makes the most of his tepid lines, and veteran Hong, who has the single best bit when Ping seems about to explain to Po how a goose could be the father of a bear (a question that’s likely to be in your mind from the first reel). Kim also has fun with the fortune-cookie pronouncements of Oogway, which he treats with a tongue-in-cheek tone that the writers might not have entirely intended. McShane brings a lot of intensity to the villain (who visually isn’t all that interesting, unfortunately) but there’s not much humor to be found in such a dark character. On the other hand, casting the Furious Five with star names would have been understandable had they been provided with anything memorable to say; they haven’t. And as is his custom, Black holds nothing back; even off-screen he seems to be mugging ferociously. Despite that, though, the bear will certainly make a great plush toy.

So “Kung Fu Panda” is certainly good-looking, and in some of the voices and brief snatches of dialogue it has its moments. But the slam-bang fight footage is excessive, in every sense, and ultimately a bit tedious, and the feel-good message isn’t just old-hat but in this case odd. In terms of the recent competition, it ends up in the same league as “Surf’s Up,” another misfit-makes-good movie with nifty visuals but a sodden script. And the truth about these animated pictures is the same as it is with live-action ones: in the final analysis it’s the writing that matters most.

C

The brainless special effects summer action extravaganza reaches its 2007 apogee with Michael Bay’s mega-budget, CGI-laden, live-action translation of the mid-eighties animated TV series (and 1986 feature) about two armies of shape-shifting alien robots (Autobots—led by Optimus Prime—good, Decepticons—led by Megatron—bad) battling over the fate of the universe and bringing their war to earth, which was in turn based on a Hasbro line of action figures kids could manipulate to look like cars, trucks and other stuff. The question about Michael Bay’s “Transformers” (like the recent “TMNT”) isn’t so much whether it’s been done well as whether it should have been done at all. Because although from a purely technical perspective it’s a marvel—a well-oiled machine, awash in splashy visuals—like its bulky metallic heroes it lacks the slightest spark of humanity; the supposedly human characters possess no more personality than the robots, coming across as cartoonish stick figures that might have stepped out of a network sitcom. Fast-paced but totally vacuous, the picture comes across as the most expensive toy (and car) commercial ever made, and at nearly two and a half hours even the most proficient advertisement will eventually lose its charm.

The script concocted by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci actually mingles the Transformers story with what’s essentially a teen comedy about a nerdy high-schooler, his new car and a foxy classmate. The two warring robot species are drawn to earth to retrieve a super-powerful cube called the Allspark, possession of which will apparently decide their battle. Their search focuses on young Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), whose grandfather, an Arctic explorer, discovered the device decades earlier and who’s selling online a pair of his ancestor’s glasses that apparently contains the key to its location. (The name eBay is mentioned so often that one hopes the website paid a proper product-placement fee.) One of the Autobots, Bumblebee, disguises himself as a seen-better-days yellow Camaro the kid’s father buys him in order to serve as the boy’s protector while his compatriots assemble for battle. In a sort of reversal of “Christine,” the car plays tunes on its radio vaguely appropriate to Sam’s immediate needs and otherwise helps him out with his romantic hopes re Mikaela (Megan Fox), the svelte co-ed he’s crazy over, in his tongue-tied way. Meanwhile the Decepticons try to locate Sam by tapping into the government’s secret computer files, which brings them into conflict with the U.S. army—especially a squad in Quatar led by Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson), and the DOD and its gung-ho Secretary Keller (Jon Voight).

There are scads of other characters floating around in the mix, too—Mikaela, of course, who becomes geeky Sam’s ally; the DOD analyst (Rachael Taylor) who cracks the robot code with the help of the obligatory hipster hacker (Anthony Anderson) whose happy-go-lucky genius is designed to pander to the dork crowd in the audience; a comically stern “man in black” from a super-secret agency (John Turturro) who takes Sam into custody but eventually proves the key to the cube’s location; and Sam’s boobish mom and dad (Kevin Dunn and Julie White). Under Bay’s flashy but superficial direction, all of them—as well as Bernie Mack, doing a cameo as a used-car salesman—mug up a storm, with Voight and Turturro in particular acting like refugees from Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!” But the heavy lifting is definitely done by LaBeouf, who remains engaging even when trapped amid an avalanche of mechanized special-effects mayhem.

And an avalanche it truly is: these robots are constantly transforming, like huge, demented super versions of Rubik’s cube, into some new shape, and they fight over and over again, demolishing whole city blocks in the process; between the battles they stand around and jabber in lame dialogue that veers from adolescent twaddle to stentorian pronouncements. It must have taken an army of effects engineers and computer specialists (as well as the hack screenwriters and some mediocre voice talent, including Hugo Weaving as Megatron) to manage it all. But to remarkably little effect. The ’bots are a curiously boring bunch, making one long for the charm of an R2D2 or C3PO (or even Robbie the Robot). And since it’s pretty much impossible to care about what happens to them, it’s difficult to appreciate, even from a technical perspective, the elaborate sequences in which they wail away at one another like a bunch of overdeveloped trashcans. (It’s just a spiffier version of the sort of stuff that’s been done on “Power Rangers” forever.)

The ultimate problem with “Transformers” is that it has absolutely no emotional core—both the robots and the humans they interact with are pallid, and however much energy Bay pumps into the proceedings (the level enhanced by the swift-cut editing of Paul Rubell, Glen Scantlebury and Thomas A. Muldoon, as well as Steve Jablonsky’s bombastic score), it’s all likely to leave you cold in much the same way that Roland Emmerich’s “Independence Day”—another cartoonish effects extravaganza about extraterrestrial invaders unveiled for the July 4 holiday, except eleven years ago—did. It’s not impossible to make a film about outer-space visitors that strikes a human chord—Spielberg, who’s one of the executive producers here, managed the feat with both “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.,” and he tried (but failed) with “War of the Worlds.” But if “Encounters” and “E.T.” were for the child at heart, Bay’s exhibition of low-brow humor, empty action and special effects is for the child at mind.

Of course, this view of “Transformers” comes from someone who until recently was totally unfamiliar with the whole phenomenon. (In preparation for seeing the movie, I did watch a couple episodes of the old series, which struck me as awful as well as incomprehensible.) Perhaps those with a nostalgic affection for the show will feel differently (although some acquaintances who used to watch it disliked the picture intensely, for the changes it made as well as its general stupidity.) And young boys brought up on video games who thrive on cartoon violence will probably enjoy it. (Fanboys who’ve never outgrown their devotion, of course, will eat it up as a matter of course.)

Others, however, will probably agree that this is one silly, overblown movie, skillful but bombastic eye-candy for the adolescent-minded, with the cinematic I.Q. of your average household appliance.