The Amazing Panda Adventure (1995)

Directed by Christopher Cain. Starring Ryan Slater, Yi Ding, Stephen Lang, Wang Fei, Zhou Jian Zhong, Yao Er Ga, Isabella Hoffman. [PG]

“Amazing” is quite the stretch, let me tell you. A whiny, stuck-up American brat (Slater, younger brother of Christian) is sent to China to stay with his distracted zoologist father (Lang) in charge of a panda preserve, ends up in the wild with a Chinese girl (Ding) trying to rescue a panda cub from poachers. The animals are cute and the China scenery can be breathtaking, but this is hokey kids’ stuff that’ll probably bore most children, or turn them off with such an unpalatable protagonist. Incapable of mustering enough story for an hour-and-a-half movie, things get slow and repetitive fast. Originally released with the Looney Tunes short, Carrotblanca, which can’t compare to the classic Warner Bros. toons, yet still has more entertainment in its eight minutes than the main feature has in eighty-something, but, again…will it appeal to kids who’ve probably never seen Casablanca and won’t catch the references? Photographed by Jack N. Green.

35/100