The Karate Kid: Jackie Chan's Best Movie In Years Yet The Summer Slide Continues

I love Jackie Chan movies. I grew up watching him on Kung Fu Theater at Saturdays. As I grew older I sought out his harder to find movies like Snake Vs Crane or Drunken Master. Even as he got older his movies were still really something until about five years ago. Then Hollywood got it's mitts on him and turned him into a CGI/wire-fu nightmare. Yes he's getting older but he can still fight and act,a quality missing from such garbage as My Next Door Neighbor's A Spy, The Tuxedo and a slew of other ready made homogenized crap (I will admit I liked all three Rush Hour movies though). Finally, somebody has given him a script to do something more than just fly around on needless wires or pointlessly bad CGI.
The Karate Kid stars Jayden Smith, son of rapper turned actor Will and actress Jada Pinkett, as Dre, the hapless tyke sent to China after his Mom gets transferred there. Dre meets a cute Chinese girl named Meiying, played well by Wenwen Han although her English is pretty rough some times, who of course has other Chinese bullies also interested in her. Dre gets his butt kicked until Jackie's Mr Han intervenes in a great fight sequence between him and six boys. Rather than hit them, he makes them hit each other. It's a great sequence and proves that Jackie can still fight just maybe not as quick with the death defying feats of his younger days. Just like the original Karate Kid movie, Mr. Han trains young Dre to fight in an upcoming tournament and beat the bullies plaguing him. The story is pretty much the same as the original with the location being the main difference. The scenery is astonishing though.
The main problem with this film is the highly insulting title. He's in China. They teach Kung Fu there. In the rest of the world that is the title, The Kung Fu Kid. But not here because the brainless dolts who run Hollywood nowadays think we couldn't tell the difference. FYI, calling a person who's Chinese Japanese or vice versa is an insult. So what you've managed to do is title a film that millions of American Asians are going to find demeaning. Brilliant.
The other problem is that this movie is nothing new, like everything else done this year. America is sick to death of remakes, sequels, and bland water downed crap. The box office once again this weekend shows it. The Karate Kid (I do loathe that title) will be number one this week with an estimated BO of 50-55M$. Not bad for a film that only cost 40m$ to make. The other big movie the A-Team not so much. This 100m$ plus budget film did terrible with only 30M$ in grosses. Another bomb for a year filled with them. Oddly, the reviews for A-Team haven't been that bad, saying it's stupid but it's fun. I'll review it next week. By the way, genius move putting two movies that will attract the same audience on the same weekend, splitting the box office which appears to be exactly what happened. As long as MBAtards run the studios, this will continue. Bravo.
Entertainment Weekly did a huge article about this year's terrible slate of movies. Risk adverse Hollywood is pumping out more and more schlock it says to pander to the masses rather than niche specific like TV. Notice, that is exactly what I said in an earlier post, once again beating MSM to the punch. Movies from the 70's had rich characters, intricate plots, good directing all missing from today's slew of "WTF was that?" flicks. The best films I've seen this year are almost all foreign movies like Pontypool, Let The Right Ones In, Dead Snow, District B13: Ultimatium, Red Cliff, to name just a few. Studio executives must be crapping themsleves as the films for the next two years look just like the mediocre nonsense from the the last six months. Here's a suggestion. READ A FUCKING BOOK, YOU RETARDS. There has got to be a hundred good books that are well written, ahve a built in audiemce ala Comic books, and have franchise potential. Mathew Reilly, Preston and Child, F Paul Wilson, Lee Child, Robert R Mcammon and Bentley Little are just but a handful of ready made, easy to adapt films. I hear most of these have been optioned so where are they? Too busy dusting off that Big Valley remake (that is true by the way)? Enough with the old TV shows, remakes and bad cmoic adaptations. I don't need Different Strokes The Film (not true), a new Fright Night (unfortuantely true) or a Jonah Hex movie written by people who apparently didn't bother to read the comic it was based on (that film I'm not bothering with as I predict 90% of America will as well). The higher ticket prices, Congress dicking with the lives of millions of people over the unemployment extensions (Banks and too big too fail but the little guy is screwed. Let's see how that works when these assholes come up for re-election), and layoffs being handed out like leafets on Holywood Bvld., disposible money is coming harder and harder to get by. Movies that fail to get people into the theater are ramapant due to things like Netflix. Who wants to pay 20$ to see something lousy? No one apparently and Holywood better be listening.

3 and 1/2 stars out out 5