As the aspiring martial artist in the new “Karate Kid” Jaden Smith is a big screen natural like his old man. Whether he’ll have a career like Will’s or one like Ralph Macchio remains to be seen, but for now, his charismatic presence is the best thing about this big summer reboot.
He plays Dre Parker, a reimagined version of the character Macchio turned into a 1980s icon. This time around he’s a cocky 12-year-old victim of the recession. “There’s nothing left for us in Detroit,” says his mother (Taraji P. Henson) as she packs him up and moves to Beijing to take a job at a car factory. There he is a fish out of water, experiencing both cultural and personality clashes. Falling for a pretty classmate () he runs afoul of class bully Cheng who opens up a forty ounce can of Bruce Lee on Dre. Alone and bruised Dre befriendsmaintenance man and kung fu master–“It’s China,” he says, “everybody knows kung fu.”–Mr. Han (Jackie Chan). The Yoda to Dre’s Jedi, Han teaches his pupil the discipline of kung fu and prepares him for the final showdown with the bullies, while Dre educates his master a thing or two about courage.
To anyone alive in the 1980s the “Karate Kid” story—although really the movie should be called “Kung Fu Kid,” as there’s no actual karate anywhere to be found—is a familiar one. The story has been freshened by a move to Beijing, but the filmmakers have wisely kept the heart and soul of the original. The underdog coming-of-age tale remains as heart tugging now as it was in 1984 hit movie but it doesn’t feel like a run-of-the-mill summer blockbuster and that’s a good thing. Director Harald Zwart takes his time with the narrative—although at 2 plus hours the simple story begins to feel slightly bloated—allowing the characters and not the action to take center stage. Add to that the beautiful Beijing backdrop and some nice performances and you have the anti-“Prince of Persia,” a movie that relies on wits and personality rather than brawn for entertainment value.
Smith is the centerpiece of the film. He’s clearly still a novice, but has inherited the best bits of both his mother (Jada Pinklett Smith) and father’s collective gene pools (he got his mother’s ears! Yay!) and has charisma to burn. He’s not going to win an Academy Award for this one, but he capably carries a great deal of the movie on his 12-year-old back.
Another surprise is Jackie Chan. Last time we saw him he was mugging his way through the truly awful “The Spy Next Door,” but here he shows his lion in winter side. For the most part he leaves his trademarked high kicking martial arts behind to focus on character and arcane sayings—“When fighting angry blind man it’s best to stay out of the way.”—but when he does fly into action somehow his trick of tying someone up with their own jacket in mid battle never gets old.
“The Karate Kid” is long, and it feels like it, with its tiresome and unfortunate catch phrase “jacket on, jacket off” (say it fast), an update of “wax on, wax off” from the first movie, but the payoff is a crowd pleaser and Jaden Smith is a superstar in the making.
It’s been almost ten years since the original Rush Hour graced theatres. Today the third (and hopefully final installment) hits the circuit a full six years since part two. Has it been worth the wait? Nope, but it’s not like people have been holding their breath eagerly awaiting Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan to once again light up the screen.
It seems strange that this movie should be coming out now. The last two were successful movies, but why the gap? The years have not been kind to the franchise. Chan’s legendary athletic skills have clearly been diminished by time and Tucker’s appearance, it’s his first movie since Rush Hour 2, will undoubtedly make people wonder why we thought he was funny in the first place.
Chan and Tucker reprise their roles as LAPD Detective James Carter and Chinese Chief Inspector Lee. This time out the not-so-dynamic duo must travel to Paris to battle the Triads and save the life of a beautiful woman. Along the way they’ll tell jokes that were past their due date when Hope and Crosby used them, perform watered down stunts that were better and more exciting the first two times we saw them in Rush Hours 1 and 2 and waste the talents of legendary cinema icons Max Von Sydow and Roman Polanski, both of whom are seriously out of place in this mess.
Rush Hour 3 feels like a cynical money grab by people who should know better. They’ve had half a decade to write, produce and direct this sequel and this is the best they can do? It’s embarrassing.
My seatmate leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, “This is the death of cinema” as Roman Polanski made his cameo. I don’t think cinema is dead, but if this movie represents the state of its health, it needs to book a check up immediately.
In “The Spy Next Door” Jackie Chan does a Hannah Montana routine. By day he is Bob, a mild mannered pen salesman, at night, however—or whenever duty calls—he’s actually a Chinese secret agent working with the FBI. Like Hannah, whose father Billy Ray co-stars with Chan, Jackie leads a double life. Unlike Hannah he isn’t popular with kids. Or more precisely he isn’t popular with his girlfriend’s three precocious children who think he is a dweeb. He is, however, determined to win them over. “I’ve brought down dictators,” he says, “how tough can three kids be?”
The kids turn out to be just as tough as the Boris and Natasha wannabes (Magnús Scheving and Katherine Boecher) who are after Bob, thinking that he has downloaded a secret formula that turns oil into dust. That formula will make them rich and they desperately want it back.
Coming hot on the heels of one of the best years in kid’s entertainment I had hoped the bar would be raised somewhat. 2009 gave us “Up”, “Where the Wild Things Are”, “Coraline” and “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, all of which are about as good as it gets in the line of cinematic amusement for teacup humans. Those movies treated kids like real, thinking people, engaging their imaginations, minds and emotions. Compared to those movies “The Spy Next Door” is a let down, as it connects with none of those elements. It’s a throwback to the kind of lame Saturday morning matinee action-adventure that passed for kid’s flicks in less adventuresome times.
It’s an old formula. Take a silly premise—undercover spy in love with a civilian—add some “heartwarming” moments—Chan lectures the oldest daughter on the importance of family—mix with one popular, yet unlikely star—Chan doing his take on the Vin Diesel role in “The Pacifier”—and the result is… a warmed over family movie that won’t appeal to adults and has little entertainment value for the kids.
The gags—like “He’s as gone as a rum cake at an AA meeting”—which I guess, are aimed at the adults in the audience, were old the first time they aired on “Hee Haw” and children may giggle when Chan answers the phone with the greeting, “Yo, it’s Ho,” but his earnest speeches about togetherness will likely send them to snores-ville.
Of course, Chan’s larger-than-life antics have always been popular with kids but there isn’t enough high flying action. There is way too much downtime between the kid friendly action sequences to keep little minds interested and even when the pace does pick up it never feels like it kicks in high gear.
Compared to the kind of kid’s films we’ve been treated to recently “The Spy Next Door” feels like a relic from a different time; a time before 2009 when the bar for this type of entertainment was raised very high.
