It’s somewhat fascinating that a movie franchise like The Karate Kid even exists, never mind has remained so popular over the years. A fairly simple film about a kid trying to stand up to bullies has now spawned, with the release of Karate Kid: Legends, six movies, six seasons of a TV series, and a pretty remarkable popcorn bucket.
Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so shocked. I’m certainly a fan of the franchise. The first Karate Kid movie is one of my earliest memories of seeing a movie in a movie theater. I would then go on to see both sequels that way as well, and I think The Karate Kid Part II is actually my favorite in the series. With the new movie coming out, it seemed like as good a time as ever to revisit a movie I hadn’t seen in decades. Not either of the first two films, but the third one, which holds a dubious place in my personal film history.
The Karate Kid Part III Was The “First” Bad Movie I Ever Saw
my own daughter is shaping up to be quite the movie critic, this is generally true. When you’re a kid, all movies are good.
And maybe that’s why I remember The Karate Kid Part III so distinctly. I remember the experience of seeing it in a theater at 11 years old. It was showing at a theater out of town, as it had been out for a while and was no longer screening locally. But I wanted to see it in the theater, as I had seen the other two movies. But what I remember most about The Karate Kid Part III was walking out of the theater and having a thought I’d never had before after seeing a movie for the first time, “Man, that movie wasn’t very good.”
Looking back, of course, a lot of the movies that I liked as a kid weren’t actually very good, but this was the first time that I realized it while watching the film. I’ve never forgotten that experience, and as a result, while I still revisit the first two Karate Kid movies from time to time, I’m pretty sure I never watched Part III ever again.
Katate Kid villains aren’t exactly the most well-rounded characters, but Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) and Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) are basically cartoon characters. This wouldn’t be a problem except that nobody else is approaching the film that way. Ralph Macchio doesn’t want to be there, his wooden performance makes that clear. The result is one character with too much energy playing against another with none.
The plot itself is incredibly contrived. The villains’ plot to destroy Daniel would have had nowhere to go if Mr. Miyagi had decided he wanted to train Daniel to compete in the karate tournament up front. The fact that he doesn’t want to do that isn’t caused or influenced by the villains. Miyagi’s own reasons are vague at best. The real reason is that the plot requires it.
Contrivances in films aren’t exactly unusual, and I’d argue they aren’t even a bad thing on their own. The issue is that you have to make the rest of your movie interesting enough that the audience doesn’t stop to consider the contrivances. That doesn’t happen here because the first half of The Karate Kid Part III is incredibly boring.
Cobra Kai may have found the good in Karate Kid Part III, but that doesn’t change themovie itself.
The first two Karate Kid movies aren’t exactly Oscar caliber, but they certainly feel like it when compared to The Karate Kid Part III. It’s as bad as I remember, if not worse. I think it may be another 35 years before I try this one again.