Having seen the first 'Kung Fu Panda' film and enjoying it, my expectations for the second film, simply titled 'Kung Fu Panda 2' were fairly high.
The second film follows the evil (and very selfish) Chen (Gary Oldman) who is determined to rule China. (With a little help of explosive fireworks his "so called" secret weapon) Po (Jack Black) the film's protagonist (again) and the furious five must stop Chen from destroying China and leaving Kung Fu in the dust. The furious five cast features Angelina Jolie (Master Tigress), Jackie Chan (Master Monkey), Seth Rogen (Master Mantis), Lucy Liu (Master Viper), and David Cross (Master Crane) - talk about a star-studded cast! (To go along with Oldman and Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu, as well). All played their parts well - doesn't take much to "act" well in a animated film as you are really just voicing your character, but I thought all lended their talents to their characters nicely.
I honestly can't remember the first film in the series too well (even thought it was only a couple years ago) but I thought this film had a little more action (put a bigger emphasis on it) with a more bad-ass villain as well as developing a story of Po's learning of his emotional childhood (that leads to a little cliffhanger at the end which could lead to another sequel). So I thought this film was pretty similar to the previous one in the series in the way of excitement factor, so I would rank them around the same as each other. If I had to choose one or or the other, I would probably pick this one only because of the more developed storyline and a little more action, but I thought both were pretty equal to one another.
So I think this is worth seeing as long as you can stand animated films made for kids. And yes, I do know that this isn't exactly a "comic book movie" by any standards, but I thought I'd put a review of this up here just in case anyone is looking for a review on this and are debating to see it or not.
So anyway, I give this film a 9\10 - not academy award nominee-like (unless you put it in the animated film category which would most likely deserve it) but it is worth a watch!