The Writer's Poke

Okay. I watched this movie out of morbid curiosity, but I have to admit that it won me over. Generally, I don't like remakes, but if a remake can actually fix some things that the original got wrong, then I can see the value in doing it. And this remake does fix a few of the issues I had with the original.  That said, I'm not a huge fan of Jaden Smith. It's not that I think he's a horrible actor; I just don't enjoy watching him in the lead role. He's the 12-year-old Karate Kid, Dre. And, of course, they are using Kung Fu in this movie, so it's silly that this movie isn't called The Kung Fu Kid. Regardless, he's four years younger than Daniel (Ralph Machhio) was supposed to be in the original. I think a slightly older Karate Kid works better.  I do like Jackie Chan in the role of the Pat Morita role. As. Mr. Han, Chan is able to do a lot more than Morita could. Morita had a stunt double to do the karate bits. Obviously, Chan doesn't need a stunt d...

Just like Part II, The Karate Kid Part III begins with a 5-minute recap of Part I, also including the new bit in Part II where Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) humiliates Kreese (Martin Kove) after the original fight.  The film came out five years after the original, but in movie time, under a year has passed. Mr. Miyagi and Daniel (Ralph Mocchio) have just returned from Okinawa; neither of their ladies returned with them. Now, Mr. Miyagi is out of money, and it's time for Daniel to start college. Note: Daniel is supposedly somehow still until 18. I wondered how old he was supposed to be, because the adult bad guys keep pushing younger students against him, but the All-Valley Championship Tournament is for 18 and younger. For most of the movie, the tension is this: Daniel wants to enter the tournament to defend his title, but Mr. Miyagi is against it. Terry (Thomas Ian Griffith), a rich bad guy and Vietnam Vet buddy of Kreese, has made it his mission to get Daniel into the tournament so tha...

Although only 2 years passed between the original and the sequel, the beginning of this film is a 5-minute recap of the original, using the original footage of the first film. A little odd. Then, it picks up right where the original film ended. Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) are leaving the tournament, as are the members of Cobra Kai and their teacher, Kreese (Martin Kove). He starts beating up all of his students, and eventually Mr. Miyagi has to step in to make him look like a fool.  What's strange about this scene is that Ali (Elizabeth Shue) and Daniel's mom are nowhere to be seen. Could they not even be bothered to put in a cameo appearance? Of course, this entire sequence could have easily been cut, because THEN we jump ahead six months. Anyway, my real impression here is that the writers didn't know where to start this film. To me, it's simple. Start it with Daniel and Mr. Miyagi getting off the plane in Okinawa. It would have been easier to e...

The first 20 or 30 minutes feel so campy, but by the time Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) become the primary focus, the quality of the story improves. It's still a big ask to think that Daniel can learn enough to even come close to winning a tournament against black belts. He did all that in 2 months? We see his training, but was he still going to school at all? And what happened to his mom for the middle 90 minutes of the film? She simply disappears, and Mr. Miyagi seems to have quit his maintenance job, too.  In terms of the Cobra Kai school, the trainer is an over-the-top villain, and for the majority of the film, none of the kids training with him like Daniel or act like they would feel any empathy for him. Well, Bobby (Ron Thomas) doesn't want to take things too far, but Johnny (William Zabka) and the others do...  And there's the class issue -- the Hill vs. Reseda. Class is the real thing, and I wondered where Daniel was getting the money even to ta...

What I immediately noticed in part 2 was the additional of humor. The first movie didn't really have any humor, but this one tried to include it everywhere. Usually, I like humor. Here, at first at least, I thought it felt forced, like the test group from the first movie said it lacked humor and so the writers made sure to add it everywhere in this one.  But then I thought: Most of the humor comes from Spider-Man. Maybe the use of humor is to show that he has grown in confidence. If he had to make a choice between being Spider-Man and Peter, he's made the choice: He's Spider-Man. Of course that won't stick. Like the first franchise, this franchise is set-up like a Romance movie, and so Peter (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen (Emma Stone) will need to continue to wonder "will we or won't we"?  Gwen seems to have made his firm choice. She's going to Oxford for 6 months, without Peter. But, of course, Peter makes the decision to stop her. Gwen doesn't put up...

What is interesting to me is how little time passed between franchises. The Amazing Spider-Man came out in 2012, just five years after Spider-Man 3. (Even less time would pass between The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man Homecoming -- 3 years). My impression is that it would make sense to allow more time to pass between franchises, or as a viewer, I'm naturally going to compare one franchise with the other. Now, since I'm watching them on DVD, I'm basically watching all the Spider-Man franchises back-to-back-to-back, but still...  This franchise does a few things differently. We have the backstory of Petere's parents, which is nice. Peter himself still comes off as pretty nerdy, but Andrew Garfield isn't quite as geeky as Tobey Maguire. You can at least imagine that he has a chance with Gwen (Emma Stone).  Since it's the first movie in the series, we go through the origin story (again). We watch him make his first suit (again) and learn how to shoot his webs ...