Would it have been that hard to get a hip-hop remix of “You’re the Best” during the climatic montage scenes? If you are going to remake an 80s movie, the least you could do is bring back the most memorable musical moment. Without that … I’m left quite disappointed but not angry with The Karate Kid.
Hey look it’s Jackie Chan! In some sort of weird coincidence, this may end up being Jackie Chan’s best performance in a Hollywood movie. He has been funnier and he has had better fight scenes, but Jackie actually had a well-rounded character that went through an actual emotional arc. I don’t think he has done that before with English as the spoken language. With all that, he even gave us a fun fight scene where he takes apart all of the bullies. That is a polite way of saying he beat up some kids. It’s Jackie Chan so he actually seems to be a worthy teacher as opposed to Mr. Miyagi moving in slow motion. So I’m thinking about if Jaden Smith is a step up or a step down from Ralph Macchio. There is no easy answer to the question. What is clear though is that Jaden is Will Smith’s son and he has picked up many of his father’s acting tics especially when it comes to reacting to someone like Mr. Han. At least he is an actual teenager who is very athletic so the fighting looked halfway decent.
I say halfway decent because the kids ages were a bit too young. There was no real danger with boys who were damn near pre-teens fighting each other. The cast looked good when they squared off but it felt like an exhibition when you were supposed to fear for Dre's life or at least health. The age problem also made the love story kind of hilarious. I assume they were shooting for cute but it definitely fell short of that mark every time they went back to it. Still these things did not ruin the movie but were more like nitpicks.
The Karate Kid was a solid remake when no one really asked for one. It had nothing to do with karate and was some sort of Chinese tourism advertisement but was also fun and uplifting like it was supposed to be.
7 out of 10
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