The Karate Kid

PG (for bullying, martial arts action violence and some mild language).

Interesting. Both “The Karate Kid” and “The A-Team” are remakes. Both “The Karate Kid” and “The A-Team” are about dealing with bullies, achieving revenge, and obtaining a “win” for the good guys.

The original “The Karate Kid” (1984) is, of course, a classic. It is kind of dangerous to mess with a classic. So, the new “The Karate Kid” tries to tell the same exact story but is a bit disingenuous with the title. The film ought to be called, “The Kung Fu Kid” because Karate is Japanese and the new film has changed the location (or focus) to China where Kung Fu is more geographically (or culturally) appropriate.

In this re-telling of the tale, the kid is Dre Parker (Jaden Smith — son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith), and he moves, with his mother, to China. There, bullies pick on him because 1) Dre flirts with the top bully’s girl, and 2) the bully’s Kung Fu teacher is a nasty, bad man.

Dre gets a Chinese butt thumping by a gang of bullies but he is saved by his apartment’s maintenance man, Mr. Han, played by none other than Jackie Chan. Dre wants to learn Kung Fu and Mr. Han decides to teach the American lad. Dre has a problem hanging up his jacket. He tends to throw it on the floor when he gets into his apartment, much to his mother’s consternation. So, Dre is shocked to learn that his first Kung Fu lesson is to put on the jacket, take it off, throw it on the floor, pick it up, hang it on the peg, take it off the peg…and then repeat and repeat, and repeat again. This is exactly like the “wax on, wax off” technique in the original film.

Okay, I think you know how this film goes. It still is, “The Karate Kid” and a different ending would not do. But the end is well done indeed. Jackie Chan is excellent. True, he is no Pat Morita, but he does a fine job. Jaden is pretty darn good too. He was 11 when this version was filmed while Ralph Macchio (the original Karate Kid) was 22, no fair comparison. Nevertheless, Jaden was believable. His pre-adolescent, annoying but nervous chattering is spot-on.

This is a kid’s film and I originally thought two hours and twenty minutes was going to be too long, but oddly, it went at a very nice clip. The China scenes were interesting and attractive or fascinating. I wanted to hate this movie but I found myself liking it.

Is it better than the first one? I really don’t care. I liked “the Kung Fu Kid.” I mean, “The Karate Kid.”

“The Karate Kid” earns three and a half bow ties out of five.

The A-Team

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence throughout, language and smoking.

 

Now, for “The A-Team:” I never really liked the TV show, but I thought I would give this a try. Basically, it is the same old story. A bunch of Veterans are framed for crimes and are thrown in federal prison. They get out and then try to redeem their characters and save America from some sort of financial disaster. The bad guys are, of course, CIA rogues and there are the ubiquitous moronic government bureaucrats and politicians.

The people who made this film were lazy. The bad guys are obvious and the plot trickery is third rate, Mission Impossible, clap trap. The jokes are feeble copies of TV episodes gag lines that I have, mercifully, forgotten. The explosions are totally predictable and after a while I lost where the story was going and really wasn’t interested in catching up.

I think this was supposed to be a prequel to the TV episodes, but I was way too busy yawning and checking my watch to really make the effort to draw a conclusion. I was grateful that the film came to a conclusion.

The “A-Team” deserves only two bow ties out of five.