Three and 1/2 stars

In an era when animated movies are either populated by cute, witty animals known more for their celebrity voices ("Madagascar") or smitten by their own sense of hipness and irony ("Shrek" 1, 2 or 3), "Kung Fu Panda" arrives in theaters as a breath of fresh air.

It is its very sense of simplicity and unassuming nature that removes it from being just more of the same old thing.

Set in a village at some undetermined time in Chinese history, "Kung Fu Panda" opens with a sleeping panda named Po (Jack Black) giving vent to a dream of becoming a kung fu master who saves villages in need while still being someone cool enough for other masters to want to hang with. In reality, though, Po is merely a support to his father (a goose voiced by James Hong) and his noodle shop.

High in the mountains above the village exists The Jade Palace, where the aged master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) oversees his protege, Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), training his most elite students -- Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Monkey (Jackie Chan) -- in the five different variations of kung fu.

The training for "The Furious Five" is to ready them for the day when the deadly and powerful snow leopard, Tai Lung (Ian McShane), returns to wreak havoc on the village and claim his vengeance on Oogway and Shifu for banishing him from The Jade Palace.

Each one of the five warriors anticipates being christened as the Palace's Dragon Warrior.

It is during the contest to fulfill the prophecy in determining who the actual Dragon Warrior will be that Po inadvertently enters the fray. To the shock and consternation of all, Oogway acknowledges that it is Po who is to be the village's champion -- regardless of the fact that the pudgy panda gets winded just climbing the stairs to The Jade Palace and is perpetually hungry -- against the relentless Tai Lung.

Shifu vehemently disagrees with his mentor's choice. "The Furious Five" are bitterly disappointed and discontented by the selection, as well. Even Po is surprised and not a little bit confused.

But time is wasting. Tai Lung is on his way, leaving wanton destruction and countless casualties in his wake.

What distinguishes "Kung Fu Panda" from its contemporaries is that Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger's story has less to do with being hip, wallowing in pop culture or being glitzy than it does with just telling a simple, self-contained story.

It doesn't try to exploit other animated features as much as it celebrates an unwavering fondness for the 1970s kung fu movies of Bruce Lee and the Shaw brothers.

Yes, "Kung Fu Panda" can be accused of giving vent to the "name actors giving voice to cute animals" shtick. But this film's actors give their humor and humanity to the animals, as opposed to simply speaking for a paycheck.

None moreso than Black as Po. Black's sense of humor comes shining through in a way that is neither tasteless nor bawdy nor cloying.

Plus, the CGI animation meshes Po's physicality with Black's, lending Po not only a requisite rotundness but providing an expressiveness to Po's countenance that exquisitely mirrors reactions that Black, the human being, would have in the same situations.

Directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson ask their actors to be nothing more than characters who can be funny.

And they and the film are. "Kung Fu Panda" is a family comedy of simplicity and fun that grown-ups and children can enjoy in equal measure.