You know how you really want to like a movie? Like, you’re already on its side before you even sit down? That was me with Karate Kid Legends. The whole idea sounded awesome, bringing together these different bits of the Karate Kid world, plus a title like Legends, I was pumped. But then the movie ended, and instead of feeling that buzz, I just felt… kinda flat. It’s a bummer, honestly, when a movie you’re so ready to get behind just doesn’t stick the landing, and you’re left thinking “dang, what happened here?”
On paper, this movie had so much going for it. You’ve got this kid, Li Fong, who’s a whiz at kung fu, trying to find his way in New York after a tough move. He needs to help a buddy, so obviously he’s in a karate tournament. And the big draw, the thing that made me (and probably every other fan) go “whoa,” was getting Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) to train him. Two legends, two different styles, one new kid. That’s just cool. Just the name Legends alone screams “this is gonna be big!” It sets you up to expect something pretty special.
Actually watching the movie, though, felt like waiting for a firework that just sort of fizzled. It was, for a lack of a better word, anticlimactic. Stuff that should have felt huge, moments that should have had me on the edge of my seat or really feeling something, just… didn’t. It’s hard to explain, but it was like the movie never really kicked into high gear. And because of that, it ended up being pretty forgettable. After I walked out, I had to really rack my brain to remember specific scenes. A Karate Kid movie shouldn’t just fade like that. It should hit you, stick with you.
And maybe the biggest letdown for me was how, a lot of the time, it just didn’t feel like a Karate Kid movie. You know that special sauce the series always had? The whole journey of finding yourself through martial arts, the discipline, the heart? It felt like that got pushed to the side. Sure, there was fighting, there was training, but it didn’t have that same soul. It was like karate (and the kung fu) was just something the characters did, not something that really meant anything deep down. For a bunch of movies that taught us so much about inner strength, this one felt like it lost its way a bit.
Now, it wasn’t all a wash. There was one part that really did shine, and that was when Mr. Han and LaRusso were together. Seeing Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso riffing off each other, showing Li Fong their different ways of doing things during training, that was genuinely good stuff. There was a real energy there, a little bit of that magic I was hoping for from the whole movie. It made me think “if only the whole movie felt like this.” Those scenes were a glimpse of what could have been, and honestly, it just made the rest feel more meh.
This movie really seemed to be leaning on the loyalty of long time Karate Kid fans (including the Jackie Chan one). It seemed to bank a lot on seeing Daniel again as a teacher, and the cool factor of having Mr. Han there too. But it didn’t quite have the punch of the old classics, and it didn’t really bring anything new or exciting enough to the table either. It felt like it was trying to please everyone and ended up not really thrilling anyone. If you were hoping for something like Cobra Kai, with its twists and edginess, this definitely wasn’t it.
Karate Kid Legends just felt like a missed shot. It had all the pieces laid out for something potentially great: cool ideas, characters we care about, a legacy that’s huge. But it just couldn’t put them together in a way that really worked. I really, really wanted to be shouting from the rooftops about how awesome this movie was. Instead I just walked out thinking, “Well, that was a movie,” and kind of wishing it had given me more to cheer about. It’s a tough thing to see a legend stumble.
That Nerd Zach 