Movie review: ‘Karate Kid: Legends’ fails to reconcile competing storylines

The trouble with Karate Kid Legends is right there in the title legends as in multiple A large number of beloved Karate Kid characters and icons of millennial sports movies enter the ring but in the ensuing melee no one emerges victorious Written by Rob Lieber and directed by Jonathan Entwistle Karate Kid Legends is another revamp of the franchise which now boasts four movies from the s and s an animated series a remake starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan and a long-running Netflix spinoff series Cobra Kai following the original characters now adults This new film is a lega-sequel if you will combining characters from both the original film and the latest remake with a new setting the Big Apple The saying two branches one tree is oft-repeated throughout the film to explain the two different kinds of martial arts training karate and kung fu that come together to shape our new young fighter Li Fong Ben Wang But Karate Kid Legends doesn t have a strong steady trunk to promotion these separate offshoots Instead it s two movies at war with each other fists and feet flying in a whirlwind In one corner and comprising the first half of the film you have a surprisingly fun and refreshing twist on Karate Kid in which the martial arts aspirant becomes the mentor Young Li grieving the death of his kung fu champ older brother is yanked out of kung fu school in Beijing where he s trained by Chan s Shifu by his mother Ming-Na Wen and uprooted to New York City There Li befriends Mia Sadie Stanley and her father Victor Joshua Jackson who run a pizza joint and have run afoul of a loan shark O Shea Tim Rozon who also happens to run a mixed martial arts gym Victor a former boxer has entered into a prize fight hoping to win the purse and enlists Li as his new trainer who agrees because he believes training Victor won t break his no fighting promise to his mother Now a The Fighter -style movie starring s kids sports movie icon Joshua Jackson The Mighty Ducks would be a great film on its own and the kung fu attendee trainer spin gives it a fun twist Alas this is a Karate Kid movie that promises legends so the pizza shop boxing training movie is fast dispatched in favor of Shifu and Daniel LaRusso Ralph Macchio descending on New York from Beijing and Los Angeles to train Li to fight in the Boroughs tournament against sadistic MMA fighter Conor Aramis Knight This image distributed by Sony Pictures shows from left Ralph Macchio Ben Wang and Jackie Chan in a scene from Karate Kid Legends Jonathan Wenk Sony Pictures Associated Press The movie is so divided in its storytelling aims that there s a sequence where Li s tournament rounds and training are spliced in with moments of character and story advance connected by frantically fast drone shots that zip over the city The pacing of this film is breakneck on speed it feels like watching a movie on fast forward at times Much of the story work is executed during rapid-fire montages and uses familiar archetypes and stereotypes in order to sketch out the basic narrative The frenetic fight sequences are so fast and fluid ramping between slow-motion and fast-motion that your eye can hardly land anywhere or even appreciate the choreography Despite being two movies smashed together torturously twisted in order to get all these legends at one tournament Karate Kid Legends isn t an unpleasant experience largely due to the charms of star Wang who has a bashfully appealing presence that belies his seriously lethal martial arts skills He has a sparkling chemistry with Stanley and Jackson further emphasizing that the filmmakers should have stuck with that one story rather than falling back on the old karate kid tropes we know so well Alas it seems originality was not the goal with Karate Kids Legends even if those hints of newness are the the majority compelling part of the movie Legends never die as they say for better or for worse and in the circumstance of this film it s for worse Karate Kid Legends In English and Chinese with English subtitles stars out of MPA rating PG- for martial arts violence and particular language Running time How to watch In theaters on Friday May Related Articles Movie Review Wes Anderson s Phoenician Scheme is as Wes Anderson as a Wes Anderson film can be Lilo Stitch teams with Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible for a monster Memorial Day weekend Movie review Jane Austen Wrecked My Life a warm romance befitting the author Eagan native Eva Erickson talks about competing on Survivor revealing autism Spoiler alert How Eagan native Eva Erickson fared on Survivor finale