Movie Review -- The Karate Kid ***1/2

That's right people.  The new remake of The Karate Kid is actually a good movie.  I was surprised as anyone to find that out.  I know some of you are skeptics, but you shouldn't be.

Let's get one thing out of the way.  The original The Karate Kid movie is an American classic.  I know that you too-cool-for-school types will want to dis it and write it off like so much 1980s cheese, but you're wrong.  While it is certainly a very dated film -- that's due mostly to the music and the haircuts -- it remains a fantastic piece of storytelling.  If you don't feel sad when you see Daniel Laruso getting his trashed kicked by the Cobra Kai, and if you're heart doesn't leap for joy when you see him loft that trophy at the end while Mr. Miyagi is beams with the pride only a handyman-turned-martial-arts-instructor can feel, you have no soul and I pity you. 

The Karate Kid is among the most quoted and is still one of the most widely referenced pieces of popular culture 26 years after its release. Wax on, wax off.  Get him a body bag, yeah! Some may say that's mockery, but mockery doesn't last for nearly three decades, admiration does.  I won't go on and on about it, but I will just say that 99 percent of movie makers wish they had a movie that resonated the way The Karate Kid has in our collective consciousness.  Sure, it ain't The Godfather or Star Wars, but, sorry snobs, it's a great movie.

The new version, starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, is faithful and reverential to the original, almost to a fault.  It takes more or less all the same turns and, while the tone is slightly different, the story is almost scene-for-scene the same.  But while the story may be the same, it is not a complete imitation.  The setting has moved from southern California to Beijing and, in fact, the hero learns Kung Fu instead of Karate, which would make sense given the setting.  Duh!  The titular character is also younger -- 12 years old instead of being in high school.

Assuming you've seen the original, I won't bore you with the details of the story.  Like I said, pretty much the same.  But, like I also said, that's not a bad thing.

Jaden Smith, while obviously still very young, appears to have the same set of skills that made his father, Will Smith, the world's last real movie star.  It's actually uncanny how similar Jaden's mannerisms and facial expressions are to his father's.  His performance in this movie -- the first where he is the centerpiece -- is very good, though no real stretch was required.  He is instantly likable and his fish-out-of-water predicament -- at the start of the movie, he and his mother have just moved to China from Detroit -- is an easy one to sympathize with. 

Chan, as the Mr. Miyagi character -- called Mr. Han in this version -- wisely opts to make the character his own rather than simply imitating Pat Morita.  Morita's performance in the original was really one for the ages.  It was in stark contrast to the actor's very American comedic style and was, at the time, a landmark for the portrayal of Asians in American cinema.  No way Jackie Chan was going to be able to pull off the same thing here.  Instead, he plays an older, wiser version of the same character he's always played, but manages to hit some strong emotional chords, both with the painful elements of the character's backstory and with his budding friendship with his student.  In the end, Mr. Han is far less iconic than Mr. Miyagi, but it works for this movie.

I was surprised to see the level of seriousness that went into producing this film.  It very easily could have just been a low-rent remake that, coupled with name recognition and the presence of Jackie Chan, earned a decent enough payday.  But, the overall look of the movie -- the quality of the camera work, the beautiful depictions of the Chinese landscape, and even the choreography of the fight scenes -- were all exceptional. 

The biggest problem with the movie is that, even though the protagonist is 12 years old in the story, they felt the need to include a romance with a similarly underage Chinese girl.  It is innocent enough and, for the most part, they are only friends.  But, the movie tends to delve too long into this aspect of the story, causing it to lose some steam at parts.  It's also about a half hour too long, that too can be blamed on the boy-meets-girl subplot.

I have a feeling that this movie will be a success and will not help to slow the tide of unoriginality coming out of Hollywood (Pixar excepted).  So, on that level I kinda wish this movie sucked.  But, it didn't.  However, I really hope they don't decide to remake The Karate Kid Part II.  I have no idea how what the characters from this version of the story would be doing in Okinawa.

All in all, this movie is a bright spot in what has been a really disappointing summer.  I'm not about canonize this movie in any meaningful way.  It is well short of being great, but better than just decent. I recommend it.