I must start by telling you about my love for the Karate Kid franchise, I really enjoy most of the films and I watched the entirety of Cobra Kai and even with its corny plot and cheesy characters, I still have a lot of affection for that show. And now, after the show is over, they decide to bring a brand new theatrical film, but this time mixing the universe of Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio’s characters. And I must confess, this film does not work at all and there’s lots of reasons why that happened.
Li Fong, a kung fu whiz (played by Ben Wang), moves to New York with his mom for a fancy school. He makes friends with a classmate and her dad, but trouble starts when a tough karate champ wants to fight him. To protect himself, Li decides to compete in a big karate tournament. With help from his kung fu master, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), and the famous Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), Li mixes their fighting styles to get ready for an awesome martial arts battle.
Get ready for a new Karate Kid film that’s less action-packed, soulless, and rushed. The film feels extremely hurried, with underdeveloped plot points, making it the shortest in the franchise at only 94 minutes. There aren’t enough good fight sequences, and some are quite boring, making it feel anticlimactic most of the time. When the Karate tournament arrives, it rushes to the final fight, skipping all other matches. Everything happens so quickly that if you blink, you’ll miss it. The film isn’t ambitious enough to change the formula, sticking to the same Karate Kid structure without trying anything new, which is acceptable, but not when that formula is shortened even more. Ben Wang is great, charismatic, and delivers a great performance, as does most of the cast. However, the story never becomes interesting enough to make you care about any of the characters. Everything is so predictable that even when something dangerous seems imminent, you can instantly say, “Yep, I know exactly how this will end.”
Let’s talk about the stars of the film, Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio. Is this a multiverse movie? Are they well-used in this film? The answer is no. Jackie Chan is good and all, but if you’re expecting any reference to Jaden Smith’s character or film, forget it. It’s as if it never even happened; no events from that movie are mentioned at any point. Ralph Macchio is also good, but honestly, it takes nearly 1 hour until he shows up, so I feel like he was barely there. Unlike Jackie Chan’s character, Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso references events from his franchise, and expect a great cameo from it!
The editing of the film is also great, with a fun soundtrack as well, but not much besides that. Everything felt so uninspiring, and I still don’t know why they even made this film. Something that I really liked is that, in some small instances, they try to actually do something different, but they felt so insecure about continuing it that they go back to the formula right away. I wish we had more action sequences, more time to develop the characters, and more innovations to a franchise that never really needed another film.
It’s safe to say that Karate Kid: Legends is one of the worst films in the franchise. It’s super rushed, formulaic, soulless, and wastes Jackie and Ralph’s character in every way possible. I hope they either stop making these films or try something new with it. Cobra Kai was great, so maybe it should’ve ended there.
Karate Kid: Legends releases in theaters on May 30.
