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Karate Kid: Legends Is Empty, Lazy Nostalgia-Bait
Even the sight of Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan together isn’t enough to give this montage-happy legacyquel any personality.
It’s a sight charming enough to coax a few extra drops of dopamine from Generation X’s collective brains: Those of us who remember the fresh-faced Macchio from the first wave of Karate Kid films (as well as his middle-aged version from the Cobra Kai series) will get a momentary kick out of watching him collude, argue, and spar with Chan, the kung-fu action legend whose charisma powered the 2010 remake. We need to face some facts: Until Cobra Kai came along and cleverly gave William Zabka’s iconic ’80s bully Johnny Lawrence his own hilariously cathartic redemption arc, the first Karate Kid was probably the only truly good entry in this franchise. Maybe if the film truly built Conor and O’Shea and their Demolition Mixed Martial Arts studio as a beastly powerhouse (à la the once-fearsome Cobra Kai), some concern, some suspense might have stirred within us.
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