Karate Kid: Legends

The protagonist of Karate Kid: Legends earns the nickname “stuffed crust” over a faux pas he commits in a traditional New York City pizzeria. It’s a fitting moniker not merely for our hero but the movie that houses him because this is the cheesiest of cinema. Like a slice of stuffed crust, there’s more cheese in this requel than anyone could possibly need. But as with the overwhelming majority of pizzas, you’re not likely to walk away from this unsatisfied.

Forty-one years after the original movie’s release, Sony has extended this franchise to a sixth film. It’s reasonable to believe the latest installment is an off-shoot of “Cobra Kai”, the recently-wrapped, six-season spin-off series that most have discovered on Netflix. In fact, though, Legends largely disregards that popular revival to instead tell a new tale with threads from both the original 1980s trilogy and 2010’s remake The Karate Kid. From the OG trilogy, we of course get titular kid Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso, still bringing boyish energy in his mid-60s. From 2010’s redo, we lose lead nepo baby Jaden Smith but retain his Miyagi-esque Chinese mentor Mr. Han (Jackie Chan).

The posters propose Macchio and Chan as co-leads, dual mentors for a new generation’s adolescent martial artist. In reality, Legends doesn’t lead into this nostalgia that much, leaving the two famous alumni out of sight for most of the picture. The two inevitably join forces in Act III, but for the hour before it, our focus is fixed on Li Fong (Ben Wang, who in keeping with tradition turned 25 this year), an introverted teen loner who emigrates from Beijing to New York with his mother (Ming-Na Wen, the voice of Disney’s original Mulan), a doctor who is adamantly against him pursuing kung fu.

Li leaves behind the thriving wuguan of his uncle Han to serve as what someone accurately describes as “Chinese Peter Parker” in New York. Li quickly finds a warm guide through the overwhelming bustle of Manhattan in Mia (Sadie Stanley, Kim Possible in the live-action 2019 Disney Channel Original Movie channeling young Jennifer Lawrence here). He agrees to teach her Mandarin, a demonstrably valuable asset in the world of restaurant repair negotations, if she will teach him “New York.” Of course, Mia comes with baggage in the form of Connor (Aramis Knight), a psychotic ex who is all about inflicting violence on the mats of his father’s dojo.

To flesh out the basics of that plot, we also get the story of Victor (Joshua Jackson of Mighty Ducks and “Dawson’s Creek” renown), Mia’s salt-of-the-earth father who owns the classic pizzeria where Li’s stuffed crust inquiry brings instant infamy. Former boxer Victor took out a loan from Connor’s father that he can’t repay and now he’s being accosted by hoodlums by the dumpsters in the alleyway outside his pizza place. Li reluctantly agrees to train the sad dad in kung fu.

None of the bones of Rob Lieber-written, Jonathan Entwistle-directed requel exude originality or break new ground. But after 1984’s original movie, the first of three directed by Rocky‘s John G. Avildsen, pushed karate into pop culture’s limelight to favorable reviews and commercial success, the franchise has never shown interest in reinvention or evolution, at least in the films. “Cobra Kai” brought the aging former youths Daniel and Johnny (William Zabka, who puts in a comic end credits cameo here) back to relevance in the style of today, as a streaming series, a format still relatively novel when it launched in 2018. Legends looks more to give Sony a summer popcorn hit with built-in recognition. That worked fifteen years ago when the Will and Jada-produced remake grossed $360 million worldwide on a budget of just $40 M with gently approving reviews and word of mouth. Legends is very much on the order of that 2010 film, consistently treading that fine line between mediocrity and something better, and using Chan, Macchio, and nostalgia to keep us on the right side of that line.

Although they open with a scene from Karate Kid Part II set at Miyagi’s den, the lightly TV-seasoned forty-somethings at the helm do not have much interest in leaning into the franchise’s past. For that matter, they don’t even seem to care if you know or remember Han or that 2010 remake. It’s weird seeing a septuagenarian Chan and realizing how long it’s been since he’s been the face of a major movie. In the decade and a half since he first played Mr. Han, the Hong Kong native has had minimal success and even less visibility with Western moviegoers. His only credits to land an audience in that time have been his voiceover work as Monkey in DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda movies (which he bowed out of after 2016) and as Splinter in 2023’s Rogen/Goldberg-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot. I’m sure some will grow nostalgic at the sight of old Chan bringing out the flying fists and deadpan comedy that made him an international star at the turn of the millennium. I can’t pretend to be among them.

When Chan last played Han, the Karate Kid franchise was ripe for reviving. It had been dormant for over a decade and closer to two with those who live their lives pretending 1994’s The Next Karate Kid starring future two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank and monks who dance to The Cranberries’ “Dreams” never happened. Fifteen years later, thanks to “Cobra Kai”, supply has caught up with demand for Karate Kid nostalgia. That leaves this movie feeling a bit superfluous, weirdly timed, and noncomittal towards courting an audience of kids, teens, or Gen Xers.

It’s a slick affair, edited to the tens to stay lean for Gen Z’s short attention spans, and imbued with a bit of Scott Pilgrim-esque visual effects to resonate with gamers. It’s not as hip or in-the-moment as it could be, but that’s probably a conscious and savvy decision for a franchise launched during Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign. It won’t be the favorite Karate Kid movie of anyone over fifteen, but nor will it be the least favorite Karate Kid movie for anyone under fifty. On a summer’s night when you don’t feel like cooking, it’s stuffed crust pizza.