Karate Kid Legends movie review: Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio's charm and bromance can't save this mid, predictable muck

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

As the opening credits for Karate Kid: Legends begin, you can already see the climax. It is the story of a kid who is bullied and must fight boys stronger than him. In the process, he meets a wise master (or two) and learns martial arts, and eventually comes of age. That is what every Karate Kid film has been about for the last 40 years. But it has largely worked. What makes Legends so irksome is that not only do you know what is going to happen, you can accurately predict exactly how it is going to go down, right down to the dialogue most characters will mouth. It is just so predictable, formulaic, and clichéd. Meant as a movie to evoke nostalgia with its throwbacks to the original film, Karate Kid: Legends only ends up showing how much it lacks in soul and sheer storytelling finesse.
Before the story begins, a little retconning of the franchise (from Pat Morita no less) tells us how the Miyagi karate is linked to the Han school of kung fu in China. Shifu Han (Jackie Chan) still teaches in Beijing even as his star pupil Li Fong (Ben Wong) is being forced by his mother to move to New York. In the Big Apple, Fong struggles but adjusts and even finds love in Mia (a very Jennifer Lawrence-coded Sadie Stanley). But as he faces up to Mia's bully ex Conor (Aramis Knight basically smouldering and frowning in every frame), he decides to fight. Han arrives to train him, and brings along a friend - Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), the original Karate Kid.
The template it follows makes it very hard for Karate Kid: Legends to have any depth. Every frame is something you have seen before; nothing seems fresh. The sad part is that the jokes land harder than the punches. Some of the quirky one-liners (largely coming from Sadie Stanley) evoke a chuckle or two. But there are very few genuine laughs in there.
The saving grace for Karate Kids: Legends is its 95-minute runtime, which does not allow you to get bored or frustrated. Sure, it follows a template and not even in a refreshing manner, but at least it gets to the point quickly. It's like a single shot of nostalgia, laden with some well-choreographed fight sequences and funny one-liners. Sadly, it doesn't quite hit you how the makers would have wanted to.
Ben Wong is earnest, likeable, and has good screen presence. It's a shame that the screenplay does not allow him to use all those qualities to the full. In the fight scenes, he seems natural. But in the more emotional sequences, the young actor is found lacking. Joshua Jackson and Ming-Na Wen are also far from their best, but do well with what they have. Aramis Knight is reduced to a Johnny Lawrence clone, right down to the violent coach and 'Mr Steal Your Girl' complex.
If it were not for Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio, Legends would have been downright unwatchable. Individually, the two actors are enough to shine on screen. Together, they bring amazing chemistry that immediately elevates the film to a fun watch. Sadly, this only happens 60 minutes into the 95-minute film. But for the time Jackie and Ralph are on screen training Ben, they light it up, giving the audience some of the most fun moments of the film and infusing some life into it.
Karate Kid: Legends appears as a cash grab in parts, engineered to make money off of nostalgia. But it falls short because the intention does not seem to be about telling a cohesive story. Maybe the makers could have taken lessons from Cobra Kai there. What is telling about how mid this film is that the best and most memorable part of it is the final scene, which is completely disconnected from the rest of the film, and gets the loudest cheers from the crowd due to a surprise cameo. When the highlight of your film is a mid-credits scene, it is certainly not a good look.