All available clues suggested that “Kung Fu Panda” would be a dumb, loud pratfall that would get lost in the dust kicked up by the summer’s real blockbusters. First there were those nagging trailer bumpers in which Jack Black, voicing the butterball hero with his usual ridiculous swagger, admonished us about cell phone use. Then there was the nervous distance separating this DreamWorks picture’s release date from that of the Pixar juggernaut, “Wall*E,” which arrives in theaters later in the month. Even the title sounded computer-generated from random keywords, narrowly edged out in that respect by “Space Chimps.”

But most of all, it’s the predictable formulas of most domestic animated features, especially when they’re compared with a success such as last summer’s “Ratatouille,” or the work of an animation master like Hayao Miyazaki, that trigger such apprehension. But while “Kung Fu Panda” features its share of self-esteem pap, it’s also quite entertaining and likable, as well as innocuously pleasing to the eye and sometimes even beautiful in a kitschy way. Maybe most important, the film, which opens Friday, is tricked out with spiffy fight sequences at prudent intervals. Mr. Black dials down his shtick from abrasively foolish to gently amusing, and is backed by a warmly drawn batch of supporting critters.

Po is a sweeter version of Mr. Black’s stock fanboy character, with his trademark love of rock music swapped for kung fu. Stuck in a little village, Po works in his father’s noodle shop with nary a prospect for joining his beloved pantheon of martial arts fighters. Meanwhile, at the kung fu school up in the mountains, the respected high master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim), a doddering turtle, will choose the land’s Dragon Warrior from the quintet of warriors trained there by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), a wizened, robed rodent.

At the naming ceremony — one of the film’s many cheerfully busy set pieces — Po has greatness thrust unexpectedly upon him after one last cross-purposes conversation with Dad (James Wong). In front of cheering crowds (pigs, bunnies, et al.), he’s unexpectedly dubbed the Dragon Warrior — sans training — after appearing in the right place at the right time. Among the disappointed are the Furious Five, who include Tigress (Angelina Jolie, unrecognizable), Crane (David Cross, also toned down), plus three others who barely have speaking parts: Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Monkey (Jackie Chan).

The dirty secret of “Kung Fu Panda” is twofold: Po hardly lifts a paw in combat until deep into the film, and the renegade-warrior villain, a jailed snow leopard and exiled Shifu student named Tai Lung (Ian McShane), really merits his own antihero comic book. Sure, if you’re going to have someone hem and haw and binge and slack, Po is your go-to galoot, but “Kung Fu Panda” is galvanized with every appearance of Tai Lung and his Anakin Skywalker-grade rage about being passed over as Dragon Warrior and jailed for his dark side.

But co-directors Josh Stevenson and Mark Osborne keep this latest cartoon menagerie definitively physical, rather than making it a collective mouthpiece for wisecracks or glorified mouse-pointers to nudge around the screen. And the CinemaScope images frame the village and the school with some lovely silk-screen knockoff landscapes, creating a canvas for orchestrating the thrilling zigs and zags of aerial melees. In Tai Lung’s introduction, a jailbreak out of a mountain fortress, the surges of his leaps and attacks from deep within excite with the frisson of approaching danger. (An opening Po fantasy sequence, hand-drawn instead of computer-animated, is also spectacular.)

Yes, a semi-nonsensical lesson for Po is set up, learnt, and drilled home by demonstration, and the beachball-bellied panda’s transformation into a warrior is a long time in coming. But if you’re going to scrutinize jump-kicking animals, then you might also notice the intriguingly macabre shadow story to Po’s saving the day — namely the relation between paternal Master Shifu and the ex-pupil he marks for a sadly necessary death.

Po is upstaged by Master Shifu, Tai Lung, and even the turtle guru with his senior moments of Zen, but it’s clear that Mr. Black, who contributed his vocal cords to “A Shark’s Tale,” will be taking on more alterna-“Shrek” underdogs in the future. “Kung Fu Panda” has a heart of cliché, but Mr. Black’s ad-libbing ease (as often before) and the colorful furballs of fury on the screen can be mighty distracting.