The Karate Kid (2010)

The Karate Kid's review took awhile to get up because it is a really long movie, and it was late when it got over.  Poor excuse, I know but you are reading it now so you must be coping just fine.  The 2010 remake of the 1984 version with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita stars Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan.  This version was similar enough to the 1984 that you knew it was related, but different enough that you didn't think it was a direct remake with an attempted facelift.

Jackie Chan was impressive in this film.  He was able to still show off his skills as he does with most of his films, but it did not have the stupidity factor.  I am still impressed when a lot of these comedy actors do serious roles.  Most of the time I give them more respect and think they should do more serious roles.  Jaden Smith was pretty good for only having a few major motion pictures to his name.  I did think many times throughout the movie that I was looking at Will Smith 30 years ago.  His mannerisms, facial expressions and speech patters are very similar.

The fight scenes in the film were good for the most part.  My favorite was the first time we see Jackie Chan bring out his skills.  He is defending Jaden Smith, and he does so against 4 of the best students in the Martial Arts school.  The whole scene, he does not hit a single one of them.  He is so skilled that he can use the students and swing them around in such ways that they hit each other.  It is truly an impressive scene.  The only fight scene I was not totally on board with was the last fight.  Jaden is hurt badly and he still manages to keep fighting.  I was not to sure about that ending.

Another thing I did not fully agree with, and I don't know much about culture so I may be wrong, was the fact that the Martial Arts master at the school was teaching them to be ruthless and cut throat.  The point of Martial Arts is more like what Jaden was being taught by Jackie Chan, is it not?  I feel that could be insulting and offensive to the culture of Japan.

*spoiler alert*

I touched above on the ending of the film, in reality I did not like it.  In my opinion they should have had Jaden loose his last fight when he got his leg broken.  Yes he would have lost his last fight, but look at how far and how much he learned in the short amount of time the film occurred.  Spinning the ending to a happy point would have been possible, and much more believable in my opinion.  The fact that he was able to hop around on one leg, do a complete back flip standing still and kick his opponent hard enough to knock him down was absurd.

2010's The Karate Kid was an alright movie.  It did not surpass the original, but it did not kill the franchise either.  I am giving The Karate Kid a 3 star rating.  It is worth checking out, so go rent it!  As always please leave comments, click above to follow my blog and share to your favorite social networking site below.  Ciao for now and see you for the next review!