I have no problem whatsoever with a film moving at a quick pace. It happens especially often with children’s entertainment, an unfortunate byproduct from filmmakers who play into a kid’s supposedly short attention span. There’s certainly nothing wrong with a film targeted to younger audiences that chooses to value action over character building, but there is a way to do both, by building character through action. Netflix’s newest animated film The Monkey King tries to achieve this, but fails to provide any characters worth rooting for. The film moves at such a breakneck speed that, for anyone that’s not giving their full attention (this is a Netflix film after all), it can be jarring to lose focus even for a minute.

Here’s just a taste of what happens in the first ten minutes of the 96-minute film: a lonesome monkey (voiced by Jimmy O. Yang) is born from a rock, where he believes he belongs with the immortal gods alongside Buddha. But he’s cast out and tries to live amongst his fellow monkeys. When they quickly realize he doesn’t fit in, after he causes one of them to be stolen by a demonic tiger, he sets out to prove his worthiness. But in order to do so, he has to find a suitable weapon, in the heart of the Dragon King’s (Bowen Yang) kingdom. He steals the weapon, a kind of magical anthropomorphized stick that “talks” to him in growling hums (think of it as a lo-fi BB-8 in stick form), and vanquishes the tiger demon. The monkey community anoints him the Monkey King, but he’s still not suitable for a place amongst the gods, so Monkey King goes on a vanquishing spree of 100 demons, thinking it will earn him enough good will. Exhausting, right?

Director Anthony Stacchi, and screenwriters Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman, structure the film loosely as a kind of Chinese version of Disney’s Hercules, with a shunted hero trying to prove his place in the world. But Monkey King isn’t half as likeable as the Greek demigod, especially once he takes on Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), a lowly and uninteresting peasant girl, as an assistant. Lin guides Monkey King on one fetch quest after another, from literal Hell to an enchanted garden, as he searches for ways to become immortal. Rarely does The Monkey King try to build any kind of kinship between Lin and Monkey King beyond a perfunctory “we’re in this together” role that’s only deepened in the film’s climax. Better yet, the film rarely makes either Lin or Monkey King into sympathetic characters, instead choosing to make them self-motivated tools of their own making.

Much like the plot, the jokes come early and often, with a relatively high hit rate thanks in part to Bowen Yang’s committed voice performance – there’s an ongoing gag about the Dragon King’s need to stay moisturized which never fails to land. Yang gets the lone musical moment, and though kid’s films certainly do not need songs to be successful, they’re easy ways to build character and move the plot along in a pinch. The scenery and character designs are vividly realized, with Monkey King and Dragon King standing out as unique creations, though they pale in comparison to this year’s standout animated offerings like Across the Spider-Verse and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.

Perhaps Netflix greenlit The Monkey King in an attempt to start its own Kung Fu Panda franchise, one that would appeal to western and eastern audiences alike. Regardless, the film is sorely lacking in vital departments that made that film (and Hercules, for that matter) stick. It’s not impossible to have a family film centered on a selfish protagonist, but The Monkey King saves his redemption until it’s too late, and buried under a mountain of plot. But my kids, and millions more, will undoubtedly consume the film and watch it countless times, so what do I know?

The Monkey King will be released on Netflix on August 18.

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