Review of The Karate Kid (2010) by Bloody W — 30 Jun 2015

Reviewing this movie was quite an ordeal. I love Jackie Chan but I loathe Jaden Smith. Why you may ask? Well for starters I think he appears to be a spoiled rich daddy's boy. I ought to know I used to be one, not a daddy's boy though! But more of a mummy's boy, and the operative word here is USED TO BE people!! But I digress, let's get back to Jaden Smith shall we? He also happens to be a very poor actor, not financially of course! You know what I mean. Also, he completely lacks on screen charisma, which is important if you want to be a superstar like daddy. To be fair, Jaden is early in his movie career; Hence improvements in his acting abilities are possible. But, let's get back to the actual review of the movie otherwise this is going to turn out more like a personal vendetta against Jaden Smith than a constructive, well-thought out and objective review; You know like most of my reviews. The movie title is completely inadequate!!! It is called The Karate Kid, when, in point of fact, it should be called the Kung Fu Kid. Indeed, there isn't even any Karate being performed in this movie by anyone. Moreover, parts of this remake were almost taken verbatim from the Original and duplicated into the plot of the 2010 version. How juvenile!! What about the ending? More precisely the special and final Martial Art move giving our protagonist his Victory:

- In the 1984 version it is called the Crane Kick, as Daniel witnesses Mr Miyagi performing it on a stomp at the beach. A little bit of movie trivia for you, the Crane kick was actually done by Darryl Vidal passing as Pat Morita, and the name of the kick was Darryl's idea too. For your information, Darry Vidal plays the second semi-finalist who opposes William Zabka (Johnny) during the Karate competition in the Original. He really is a skillful Martial Artist. But, I digress, again! So let's get back to my initial point, shall we? The victory kick in the original is real. No CGI, no stunt double there!! Granted it isn't a very impressive move and is only a front kick, it nevertheless became part of our Pop Culture and iconic in many ways. In the remake, the victory kick was not real, the whole persona of Dre (Jaden Smith) was computer generated whilst doing the kick. In spite of him having been given a rigorous Kung Fu training by Jackie Chan himself, before and during filming. To finish off on a positive note, the only two small redeeming factors of the movie were Jackie Chan's performance as Mr Han, which was quite versatile and showed off his true acting abilities nicely. Let's not forget the beauty of the On location scenes in China, that were shot breathtakingly may I add in closing.