lord_orsum

A troubled teenager moves to a new city, missing his home and friends. He meets a girl, struggles with bullies (including his girlfriend's ex) and needs to learn karate to win a competition to prove himself.

These broad strokes apply equally to the original Karate Kid and this new iteration. This doesn't make it bad, but it does not tread much new ground. In fact, this film delivers a good execution of this tried and tested formula.

What it does particularly well is having the sense to wait long enough to introduce both Jackie Chan's character (apart from a very short early sequence) and Daniel LaRusso. It doesn't fall victim to the temptation to bring them in too early.

Also, the fight scenes are clearly influenced by Jackie Chan's signature action/comedy/chaos mix. I also liked the mixing of KungFu and Boxing when training the girlfriend's dad.

Lastly, the opening scene, set in 1986, with the teenage Daniel LaRusso and Mr Miyagi is pretty much technically perfect. The CGI ability to recreate actors is frankly astonishing.

I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that Idris Elba and John Cena have plenty of charm and buddy chemistry. The action scenes are well shot and the hand-to-hand combat is well choreographed.

The bad news is that the plot makes little to no sense. The idea that NATO keeps files on all of its member's dirty secrets is nonsense, and the inexplicable ability of the bad guy to show up wherever and with an endless supply of special ops type goons is absurd. The finale when he arrives at the NATO summit (in the actual meeting room) with a small army by surprise is a complete "huh!" moment.

Overall, it's a by-the-numbers buddy action flick, with good action and terrible writing.

Here is the story of a house. The conceit (or gimmick, if you will) of this film is that the camera never moves; the entire film is shot from a static angle, with comic-book style frame-within-frame transitions between different periods (and inhabitants) of the house. Only at the very end does the camera move.

The story covers multiple inhabitants, but primarily the life of Tom Hanks' character, Richard. It has to be acknowledged that the de-aging CGI is nothing short of miraculous.

The film covers the highs and lows of these varied lives, the successes, the regrets, the abandoned dreams. If there is a message here, it is to find the joy in every day, in everything, and most of all, in the people you love. The housewife dancing while vacuuming sums this up perfectly; it could be a chore, but it is embraced as an act of pure joy.

I gave this 8/10 purely for the bravado of original film-making. Zemeckis dared to try something different, and that is something we don't often see these days.