Ang Panday (2017) Movie Review

Due to a very busy Christmas Season all the way down to New year I didnt have time to watch or do much MMFF Movie review but I did managed to catch Ang Panday after New Year Eve. Truth be told Im not a big fan of the franchise although Ill admit I did managed to watch a good share of Panday on and off since the 80's with FPJ right down to Bong Revilla's version. It was mostly kids movie and it had been rebooted and remade a lot of times in both the big and small screen that I really didnt have any high hopes for it going into the theater.

The 2017 Ang Panday is the seventh installment of the Panday series. The film is directed, produced and starred by Coco Martin in the title role. It is distributed and produced by Star Cinema with Martin's own film company CCM Film Productions, and Viva Films.

The story is about Flavio III who is the third next in the Panday bloodline whos father and great grandfather has fought and stopped evil timeand again in the form of Lizardo an immortal entity that can only be killed by a Panday and their magical sword. He has lived a somewhat normal life until Lizardo and his minions comes back to wreak havoc on the land again. he must find his lost heritage, find the magical sword and fight this evil like his father before him.

The story is nothing new in todays standard and a lot of the scenes are cliche and often a rinse and repeat of what is already been done before as far as storytelling or Panday stories goes. Same magical sword, same black magical book, same magical meteorite falling from the sky. A lot of the stuff is pretty much the same thing you would expect from a Panday movie. This movie however managed to give the Panday a modern feels to thread its origin back to the very first Panday and gives the kids and people new to the franchise something they can relate to without rebooting the entire origin story again.

Character wise Coco Martin as Panday makes up most of whats good about this movie. There are some scenes that is un-Panday like but then again Panday didnt hit me as a saint more of just the guy who has to do stuff. He is rough and edgy and went think twice to get into trouble if it is to his advantage. Jake Cuenca character as Lizardo is a mixture of persona that its hard to pin one charcater on him. Basically he feels like a joker-ish character with the looks of the Crow. He is over the top at most times and it works for his character. I like they maintain much of the iconic Panday look with the red shirt and Lizardo's long hair.

Sadly the other side characters didnt hold much aside from Awra's character Diego. Even the love interest of Flavio the lovely Maria seems flat and is mostly there for eye candy. I still dont get how come Flavio who lives in a squatter area with brothers and sisters that sleep in a small house like sardines can own a motorbike that probably cost thousands of pesos. Now why all Lizardos henchmen wear shades even at night and no one notices anything wrong with that. And how come when Flavio fights off monsters no one ever got it on video and posted them online since nearly everyone in the Metro have pocket phones with camera and video camera these days but I guess thats just me being picky again.

Visually the film is impressive. The relies mostly on practical effects and the cgi is not over used. There's probably one or two scenes that could probably been redone better or some scenes that could probably have been made longer, like maybe Flavio needs to go through some trial to prove himself worthy of the magical sword, but instead we got him dealing with clumsy green giant, some dwarves and a fight with some guy that throws fireball before he gets the sword is way too short.

Overall despite its flaws this movie is highly entertaining for both kids and those who wanted a good popcorn movie. It has rap battles out of nowhere, a gay beauty pageant and a musical number. Do not expect a deep story or serious characters in this film. This is Panday, a tale of good versus evil, a blacksmith with a magical sword wrapped up in a fight with dark magical creatures set in a more modern world. Its cheesy and full of cliche, we know its what it is and we love the film for it.