Karate Kid III

I don't know how many stars to give this movie, because a 1 tells you not to see it, and a 10 tells you that it is an excellent movie. Truth be told, this is one of the worst movies ever made, and that is why you absolutely must see it. It is more unintentionally funny than most actual comedies, and it provides as much entertainment value by accident as lots of movies do on purpose. It is like a train wreck, but with this wreck, the passengers are all slipping on banana peels as they exit the train.

Here is what I think happened – the producers decided that they wanted to cash in on the franchise one more time, so they decided to bring back Mr. Miyagi and Daniel for one last hurrah. The script writers cooked up another story about Daniel fighting the Cobra Kais, getting beaten up, competing in the karate tournament once again, and then winning in the end. Then Ralph Macchio showed up for day 1 pudgy and out of shape, and panic erupted. Quickly, the script was rewritten with all of Daniel's fight scenes taken out, and the tournament rules changed so that all Daniel had to do to defend his title was show up for the last fight. I find it next to impossible that anyone associated with this movie honestly expected the audience to buy this, but they were far enough into the project that they had no choice but to finish it.

So what do we get? We get an hour and a half of poor Danny getting abused over and over again. He's chubby. He's pushing 30, but he is still 17 in the movie and he sounds like he is about 13. He gets punched. He gets taunted. He gets kicked in the balls. His, uh, "girlfriend" gets harassed and almost assaulted as some bullies trash Mr. Miyagi's shop, but Mr. Miyagi does absolutely nothing but push the bullies out the door. At no point, does it cross anyone's mind to call the cops. At some point, we start sympathizing more with the bullies than Daniel. He is such a wimp with no defensive instincts, and at this point, Mr. Miyagi seems like an insensitive dope because he makes Daniel get beaten to a pulp multiple times before he will finally agree to train him.

You can tell that just about everybody acting in this movie knows that it's a stinker, so why bother trying? Ralph Macchio totally phones in his performance, and so does Pat Morita (Miyagi). The minor actors in the movie, like Thomas Ian Griffith (the evil pony tail guy) and Martin Kove (the big evil trainer from the first movie) seem to get the joke here. They play over the top, exaggerated cartoon villains, whose only function is to be pointlessly mean. They are grown men, but their lives revolve around torturing a 17 year old boy as revenge for winning a karate tournament. At the end, Daniel finally faces down the big bully. Only this time, he doesn't try to throw any punches or block anything. He just stands there like a doughboy punching bag, yelping out in pain with his girly voice. I have always thought that the greatest achievement of the first two movies was that they made Daniel's triumphs believable and convincing. Since Mr. Miyagi focused on defense and maintaining a positive attitude, Daniel could survive a fight against a privileged bully and a brutal Okinawan street fighter who did not have this kind of positive influence. But in this one, it's just a massive beating. It is just so hard to take seriously that you get a sadistic pleasure out of it, kind of like watching somebody get hammered with a 2X4 in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Maybe the worst thing about this movie is that deep down, somewhere buried underneath the terrible acting and the awful script, there were some good ideas here. A Vietnam vet befriending Daniel and teaching him the darker side of martial arts – sounds like a story with a lot of potential. Maybe the world isn't inherently a good place. Maybe life has predators and prey, and maybe a Vietnam vet is an appropriate guy to teach that to Daniel, who up to this point is still pretty naïve. Maybe a movie that questioned the idealism of the first two and dug into some gray areas could have been really good. But, nope! We just got a tired rehash of the lessons from the first two movies, but they don't even seem to make sense here. Our Vietnam vet is actually just a villain – so cartoony that he even goes around a corner for a sneaky evil laugh while he listens to Daniel punch a piece of wood. Ouch! This one shows up on cable somewhere every once in a while, and if you can catch it, I highly recommend it. Invite some friends over, have a few beers, and have a few laughs at the expense of this tire fire.

Having enjoyed the first two films, I wanted to see this film too. While not particularly brilliant, I do think it is better than people make it out to be. The script is weak, the plot predictable and the villains unbelievable with somewhat unrealistic motives. However, it did move fairly briskly, had some neat direction, it looked good, the karate sequences were efficient and well choreographed, the ending was decent and there is some nice messaging. I have liked the character of Miyagi as well, he strikes me as wise and caring, the sort of character I like. The acting also was not too bad, Ralph Macchio once again is appealing while Pat Morita, who is always watchable, gives another solid performance. Overall, it was decent, while nothing exceptional. 6/10 Bethany Cox

After returning from Japan, Mr. Miyagi & Daniel(Pat Morita & Ralph Macchio again) try to settle in to their lives, only to have old foe John Creese(Martin Kove) return seeking revenge after losing his students, his school, and his money. He turns to grateful Vietnam veteran buddy Terry Silver(Thomas Ian Griffith) to help him regain what he lost, and punish Miyagi and Daniel.

A great pity this is such a comic book level script, with over-the-top villainy(at one point, both Creese and Silver laugh at Miyagi & Daniel like they're the Joker and Riddler!) and redundant character development(Did Daniel learn nothing from the first two films?) Only Pat Morita keeps this disappointment from complete ruin, with his fine performance(he looks appropriately weary of it all!) Ending is predictable, but too abrupt, leaving loose ends never tied up.

Rumor has it Tom Cruise was offered the chance to reprise his signature '80s role in two (!) Top Gun sequels, but refused because he didn't want to do the same thing over and over. He has a point: some films, like Star Wars or Indiana Jones (even Rocky or Rambo, to a reasonable extent), can and in fact deserve to have follow-ups, because the people who made them genuinely think there is more to tell about those characters (Rocky V is too much, though); others, like Top Gun or The Karate Kid, are crippled from the beginning by the fact that they are indelibly connected to the decade that spawned them, and also suffer from having fairly basic scripts and characters that wouldn't really benefit from any continuation of the story. Sadly, Ralph Macchio never realized this, and so here we are: The Karate Kid, Part III.

Whereas the first film dealt with a recycled subject (young boy gets revenge on those who humiliated him) from a new angle, Part III resurrects the revenge theme with all its clichés. The "driving force" (assuming there is one) of the screenplay (if you can call it that) is John Kreese (Martin Kove), the sadistic karate teacher whose students got their asses kicked by Daniel Larusso (Macchio). Broke and lonely, Kreese decides to ask an old army buddy, Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), to help carry out a diabolical plan that will make Daniel and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) suffer like never before. Getting them to fight back, however, will prove harder than usual, as Miyagi is more interested in opening a bonsai shop and Daniel refuses to act violently since he is - what a surprise, this - in love.

Love, vengeance, honor, blood and gratuitous butt-kicking are all thrown in the mix, though hardly any of them work to full effect. As a matter of fact, the more explicit violence suffocates the franchise's trademark comedy bits, leaving a few underwhelming Daniel/Miyagi moments with the duty of lightening the tone. Even worse, though, is the over-the-top behavior of the villains: Griffith does nothing but stare manically, shout and laugh, while Kove, who was funny in the first installment of the series, transforms Kreese into a grotesque parody of his earlier work. Only when the dead-certain final battle arrives, there is a sense of the trilogy regaining whatever it lost from Part II onwards. But the question remains: how many people will still be paying attention at that point?

I believe "The Karate Kid Part 3" is a worthy, entertaining and well-acted final installment in the popular trilogy. An improvement over Part 2, this final chapter couldn't have been done any better. Having watched Daniel and Mr Miyagi's relationship develop in the first two film's, Part 3's story threatens to break up their friendship, thus creating a perfect blend of tension and drama. Having Daniel train under the sadistic Cobra Kai teacher adds to the film's intensity. His relationship with Mr Miyagi further threatened by lies and heated arguments, Daniel(Ralph Macchio) gives a solid and engaging performance, proving that he is a competent actor. I found the film refreshing in many ways, especially in regard to Daniel's relationship with his female friend, which doesn't develop into a typical love-interest subplot like the previous two film's. This film may be a little on the dark side but in all honesty it's a decent finale to a very entertaining movie trilogy.