DreamWorks has made many good movies including: “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Puss and Boots,” and “Shrek.” While DreamWorks is not Disney, I think that it has made up most of my childhood. It’s iconic for its creative villains and story lines.  DreamWorks just released their new movie “Kung Fu Panda 4” and the public has a lot of opinion.

Coming from my perspective, I hold DreamWorks on a pedestal, so when I watched this new movie in theaters I was expecting brilliance. I wasn’t wrong, but I also wasn’t super right. Like I said, I love the villains that DreamWorks presents and this one was no different. The shape-shifting chameleon using all of the past villains of Po to defeat Po himself was very creative. It also added a little nostalgic touch when Ti Lung came back and told Po that he was the right dragon warrior. The moments leading up to the climax were, as usual, very playful and joking like the first three movies.

One part about this movie that I simply could not get over was the fact that the furious five were not present in the movie until the very end for a short few seconds. I think that having the furious five in the movies is vital to the success of Kung Fu Panda, even if they were trapped in a cage during the big fight. Having them there for Po’s support is just part of it. In the previous movie, the furious five did not make the biggest presence but the audience still got to see their favorite characters.

The whole point of the movie was that Po has to find a successor much like how Master Oogway had to choose a dragon warrior in the first movie, but this felt too soon to the majority of the audience. Po had only been a dragon warrior for what felt like two seconds. In the second movie he owned his skill and then in the third movie he finds his father and his chi, which brings out his true form of dragon warrior. For the fourth movie to just be him passing on his knowledge, it didn’t feel enough in some ways. While Po still fought a fight and there was still a clear message, it felt weird to know that this was it for Po’s journey.

Many could describe this as an end of an era and some may consider this the end of their childhood as DreamWorks end the “How to Train Your Dragon” series and the “Puss and Boots” series as well. After some research I found that the plan for the “Kung Fu Panda” series is to have six movies and while all of them feature Po, I have theories that the next two movies in the series will be about Po’s successor.

My experience with this movie was very back and forth, but nonetheless I did love the adventure, the jokes, the laughs, and, of course, the classic message behind all of DreamWorks’ movies.

If I had to give this a rating I would give it  3.75/5 stars.