The Karate Kid (Amazon Instant Video)

   Karate Kid was a good movie overall, but left me still wondering why it was remade when it was over. The movie mostly matches the original in basic story even if the new version is in China.On the good side, the technology of today makes some of the scenes more realistic, especially the fights, but it still felt like something was missing in this movie when compared to the old one, as if they thought using today's technology would somehow make a better movie which seems to be a normal problem with modern remakes.Jaden Smith does a decent job with the role, but it felt like the character was a little too young. Maybe that's because I grew up watching Daniel Larusso who was supposed to be about 17 or 18 in the original. The love story is better in the new movie and was mostly a afterthought in the original, as was Jaden's relationship with his mother compared to Daniel's. The original movie focused mostly on the main plot, while the new movie attempted to branch...Read more

"The Karate Kid" is very much a worthy counterpart to the 1984 film on which it's based, not only in terms of story, but also in terms of quality; the excitement, humor, warmth, and themes of friendship, maturity, and overcoming adversity have been left intact, and better still, there's no sense that any of it has been cheapened or simplified to the sake of appealing to a mass audience. The only exception, and I'm really just nitpicking here, is a glorious but contrived aerial shot of martial arts training directly on the Great Wall of China, the helicopter camera zooming around Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith as they pose dramatically. If there was ever an image that belonged in a Chinese tourism commercial, this would be it.A more substantial criticism is that, because this is such a faithful remake, there isn't much it can do to surprise us. Anyone familiar with the 1984 film will know exactly how this new version will play out, from the main character's awkward arrival at...Read more