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Los Angeles Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In the overstuffed ‘Karate Kid: Legends,' too many storylines compete for dominance
The problem with 'Karate Kid: Legends' is right there in the title: 'legends,' as in multiple. Many beloved 'Karate Kid' characters and icons of millennial sports movies enter the ring, but in the ensuing melee, no one emerges victorious. Written by Rob Lieber and directed by Jonathan Entwistle, 'Karate Kid: Legends' is another revamp of the franchise, which now boasts four movies from the 1980s and '90s, an animated series, a 2010 remake starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan and a long-running Netflix spinoff series, 'Cobra Kai,' following the original characters, now as adults. This new film is a 'lega-sequel,' if you will, combining characters from both the original film and the recent remake with a new setting: the Big Apple. The saying 'two branches, one tree' is oft-repeated throughout the film to explain the two different kinds of martial-arts training (karate and kung fu) that come together to shape our new young fighter, Li Fong (Ben Wang). But 'Karate Kid: Legends' doesn't have a strong, steady trunk to support these separate offshoots. Instead, it's two movies at war with each other, fists and feet flying in a whirlwind. In one corner and comprising the first half of the film, you have a surprisingly fun and refreshing twist on 'Karate Kid,' in which the martial-arts student becomes the teacher. Young Li, grieving the death of his kung fu champ older brother, is yanked out of kung fu school in Beijing (where he's being trained by Chan's Shifu) by his mother (Ming-Na Wen) and uprooted to New York City. There, Li befriends Mia (Sadie Stanley) and her father, Victor (Joshua Jackson), who run a pizza joint and have run afoul of a loan shark, O'Shea (Tim Rozon), who also happens to run a mixed martial-arts gym. Victor, a former boxer, has entered into a prize fight hoping to win the purse, and enlists Li as his new trainer, who agrees because he believes training Victor won't break his 'no fighting' promise to his mother. Now, a 'The Fighter'-style comeback movie starring '90s kids sports movie icon Jackson ('The Mighty Ducks') would be a great film on its own. Alas, this is a 'Karate Kid' movie that promises 'legends,' so the pizza shop boxing-training movie is quickly dispatched in favor of Shifu and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) descending on New York from Beijing and Los Angeles, respectively, to train Li to fight in the 5 Boroughs tournament against sadistic MMA fighter Connor (Aramis Knight). The movie is so divided in its storytelling aims that there's a sequence where Li's tournament rounds and training are spliced in with moments of character and story development, connected by frantically fast drone shots that zip over the city. The pacing of this film is breakneck on speed; it feels like watching a movie on fast-forward at times. Much of the story work is executed during rapid-fire montages, using familiar archetypes and stereotypes to sketch out the basic narrative. The frenetic fight sequences are so fast and fluid, ramping between slow-motion and fast-motion, that your eye can hardly land anywhere or even appreciate the choreography. Despite being two movies smashed together, torturously twisted in order to get all these legends at one tournament, 'Karate Kid: Legends' isn't a wholly unpleasant experience, largely due to the charms of star Wang, who has a bashfully appealing presence that belies his seriously lethal skills. He has a sparkling chemistry with Stanley and Jackson, further emphasizing that the filmmakers should have stuck with that one story, rather than falling back on the old karate kid tropes we know so well. Alas, it seems originality was not the goal with 'Karate Kids: Legends,' even if those hints of newness are the most interesting part of the movie. Legends never die, as they say, for better or worse, and in the case of this film, it's for worse. Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Emilio Estevez Says He Wrote ‘Mighty Ducks 4' To Make Up For 'Disasters' From Disney+ Series & Recalls ‘St. Elmo's Fire' Director Was A 'Nightmare On Set'
Emilio Estevez is making some big revelations in his latest interview, where he discusses writing a new Mighty Ducks sequel and shares his experience on the set of St. Elmo's Fire. One of Estevez's most memorable roles was playing Coach Bombay in the 1992 film The Mighty Ducks. The actor reprised his role in the Disney+ series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, but left the show after the first season as a result of 'nothing more than a good old-fashioned contract dispute' as well as 'a myriad of creative differences.' More from Deadline Emilio Estevez Not Returning To 'The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers' For Season 2 Rob Lowe Says 'St. Elmo's Fire' Sequel Is In 'Very, Very Early Stages' 'The Breakfast Club' Stars Reunite For The First Time Since Film's Release: "Moved To Have Us All Together" In a new interview with Josh Horowitz for the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Estevez said he 'wrote Mighty Ducks 4.' 'I wanted to make up for all of the disasters that happened on the Game Changers series,' he said. Estevez said the 'feature script' would have 'Coach Bombay coming back [and] being pulled back in by Josh Jackson's character and Kenan Thompson's character to coach a new team: an expansion team for the professional women's hockey league. So it would be an all-girl team.' The actor goes into detail that 'when we discover Bombay, he's coaching roller derby, and so he says, 'My girls are going with me. They have to have a shot.' And it was charming, and contemporary, and cool.' Despite his enthusiasm for a Mighty Ducks sequel, Estevez said that Disney told him that they didn't want to pursue that idea. During the same interview, Horowitz asked Estevez for 'the worst note a director has ever given' him, which made him recall his time on the set of 1985's St. Elmo's Fire. 'Have a good f***ing time,' Estevez said, director Joel Schumacher told him as the filmmaker was 'screaming at the top of his lungs.' 'To go from John Hughes [director of The Breakfast Club], who was collaborative, who was a mentor in many ways, who was calm, listened, to Joel, who was wildly insecure and was a nightmare on set and was a bully… And to have that happen in the same year was, and I vowed never to speak to my actors that way if I ever got a chance to direct. In 1984, I thought this was the best lesson a young actor who wants to direct could ever get. Thank you Joel,' Estevez said. Watch the full interview with Estevez in the video below. Best of Deadline Everything We Know About Netflix's 'Ransom Canyon' So Far 'Ransom Canyon' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The New Netflix Western Romance Series Everything We Know About 'Emily In Paris' Season 5 So Far
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Emilio Estevez Feared He'd Be Fired From ‘The Breakfast Club'
Emilio Estevez once feared that he blew it during table read for The Breakfast Club. The actor, who played high school jock Andrew Clark in the 1985 John Hughes coming-of-age film, spoke out about the film's 40th anniversary reunion at the C2E2 pop culture convention on April 12. 'The first time that we all got together, [Hughes] had organized a read-through of the script at a hotel in Century City,' Estevez, 62, recalled, per Entertainment Weekly. 'I had, the night before, just had all four wisdom teeth pulled — impacted wisdom teeth. I was on pain pills.' Estevez explained that his agent called him and told him he had to show up for the read-through, despite the fact that he had a swollen face and was on painkillers. The actor noted that after the table read, Hughes proudly played the first cut of his movie Sixteen Candles for The Breakfast Club cast, which included two Sixteen Candles stars—Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall—as well as Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy. 'We're sitting there, I don't think I made it through the opening credits,' Estevez revealed, adding that he didn't wake up until the very end of the movie screening. 'I passed out from the pain pills, and just from the ordeal of having my teeth extracted," he explained. "I believed [I would be fired]. I thought, 'Oh gosh, I just failed the final test.' Estevez went on to star in The Breakfast Club, which became one of the biggest teen films of the 1980s. But years later, he did part ways with a spinoff of one of his other big movies. After starring in three films for The Mighty Ducks franchise, in 2021, he got into a dispute over the Disney+ series The Mighty Ducks Game Changers. Deadline reported that the actor exited the franchise amid a 'contract dispute' and 'a myriad of creative differences.' Estevez was also dealing with the effects of long COVID at the time.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Emilio Estevez explains why he missed every 'Breakfast Club' reunion: 'I skipped all of my high school reunions'
Emilio Estevez loves his The Breakfast Club costars. He just doesn't like reunions. Forty years after making the generation-defining teen drama that saw his jock Andrew Clark thrown together in a Saturday detention with popular princess Molly Ringwald, nerd Anthony Michael Hall, bad boy Judd Nelson, and introvert Ally Sheedy, Estevez finally deigned to attend a cast reunion. "I skipped all of my high school reunions," Estevez joked when asked what took him so long at the "Don't You Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club 40th Anniversary Reunion" at the C2E2 pop culture convention in Chicago on Saturday. He went on to explain that "this was just something that finally I felt I needed to do, just for myself. But this one felt special. We're here in Chicago, where we made the film. It's obviously the 40th anniversary, and it just felt like it was time." Ringwald confessed she felt "really very emotional and moved to have us all together. This is the first time Emilio has joined us," adding with a wink, "We don't have to use the cardboard cutout anymore." Estevez confessed that it was a comment of Ringwald's that, after getting back to him, played a decisive role in finally motivating him to accept a reunion invitation. "Somebody told me that Molly said, 'Well, does Emilio just not like us?' And that broke my heart," he shared. "I thought, 'No, of course, I love all of them.' And this just made sense, so here I am." The former Brat Pack member and son of Hollywood legend Martin Sheen has appeared in at least half a dozen films enduringly popular enough to merit continual reunions, from St. Elmo's Fire and The Mighty Ducks to The Outsiders, and the star has been loath to attend those reunions, too. Estevez's history also suggests that he isn't categorically opposed to cast reunions — at least not when they come in the form of reboots and sequels. Estevez reprised his role as coach Gordon Bombay in the first season of Disney+'s sequel series, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. One poignant episode saw Bombay reunite with several key characters and players in the youth hockey team he originally coached in the 1992 film, including Fulton Reed (Elden Henson), Averman (Matt Doherty), Adam Banks (Vinny La Russo), Connie (Marguerite Moreau), Guy (Garret Henson), and Kenny Wu (Justin Wong).The Breakfast Club is perhaps the most beloved of all writer-director John Hughes' films, which include Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles. The film had an enormous impact on the careers of its five principal stars, but Estevez revealed at Saturday's reunion that he was barely present for their first meeting. The night before the first script read-through, Estevez said he'd "had all four wisdom teeth pulled" and was "on pain pills" when Hughes queued up a first cut of Sixteen Candles. "He puts the film on, we're sitting there, I don't think I made it through the opening credits. I passed out from the pain pills, and just from the ordeal of having my teeth extracted." You can watch the full reunion of The Breakfast Club cast above. Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
