One of the funnier bits in "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" was Verne Troyer's portrayal of Mini-Me. As the name would suggest, the character was a pint-sized replica of sorts to Mike Myers' Dr. Evil who aped his namesake's mannerisms and such but definitely had his own personality. While watching the remake of "The Karate Kid," I couldn't help but think of Mini-Me, and that had nothing to do with Austin Powers or that remakes usually ape the original material and/or come off as lesser replicas of said films.
Instead, it's that its star, 11-year-old Jaden Smith, is so much his daddy's boy -- his father being an actor you may have heard of before, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air -- that it's nearly akin to watching a highlight reel of his father's characters, facial expressions, mannerisms, attitudes and more all wrapped up in a cute and entertaining package.
For those who haven't seen any promotional material for the film, no, Will Smith isn't playing the Mr. Miyagi part and thus this isn't the father/son duo's second pairing together following "The Pursuit of Happiness." Instead, the younger Smith takes over the role first established by Ralph Macchio in the fairly beloved 1984 film, while martial arts legend Jackie Chan steps into the late Pat Morita's role as the wise martial arts mentor with a knack for highly unusual training techniques. It's their chemistry together along with their individual performances that help the film transcend being marginally passable to -- shock of all shocks -- surprisingly entertaining.
That's not to say there aren't any flaws, however, as enough of them exist to keep the film from being better. The first, of course, is that the pic is a remake of a fairly decent and certainly enjoyable film from - gasp -- more than a quarter of a century ago. Beyond being yet another indicator of Hollywood being bereft of original ideas and simply try to cash in on name recognition, there's the fact that anyone who's familiar with the original flick will pretty much know how this one's going to play out.
Granted, the same pretty much held true the first time around as director John G. Avildsen was simply retreading his own "Rocky" underdog storyline as mixed with the old Charles Atlas "98-pound weakling beats up the bullies" fantasy. Thankfully, the new filmmaking team of director Harald Zwart and screenwriter Christopher Murphey has switched things around enough that we're not faced with a literal duplicate of the first film, and some of the alterations actually benefit the material and make it more believable.
In the original, we had Macchio's Jersey high school senior move with his mom to Los Angeles and need Morita's Yoda-like mentoring to ward off the pretty boy bullies, the leader of which was the ex-boyfriend to Elisabeth Shue's love interest character. Here, we have a 12-year-old kid from Detroit transplanted to Beijing with his mom (Taraji P. Henson relegated to standard mom material) where he feels completely isolated since he's small for his age, can only repeat a few rehearsed lines of Chinese and apparently is the only black boy around.
Surprisingly, there's no overt racism behind him drawing the wrath of the local bullies (Zhenwei Wang standing in for William Zabka, but coming off as far more credible in his martial arts prowess), although the leader clearly isn't pleased the foreigner has taken a liking to a pretty violinist (a sweet Wenwen Han). Dre's isolation and fear is palpable, and thus the viewer is more likely to be drawn to his plight than Macchio's the first go-round. Of course, it also helps that Smith's age and size add to that vulnerability (Macchio was 24-years-old while playing the high school senior) and thus make everyone relieved when Mr. Han steps in to protect and then mentor/train him.
Displaying a rare dramatic side of his usual clownish onscreen persona, Chan is fairly good in the role, even if he's limited to the same sort of story arc that enveloped his predecessor. It would have been fun to have seen him engage in more fight scenes (not counting the training, there's only one such highly enjoyable sequence that works for both the storyline and Chan and his character's age). He and Smith have a natural chemistry together and it's fun seeing them play off each other.
What isn't that enjoyable, however, is seeing young/small/scared Dre getting beat up. That wasn't as much of an issue in the original since the protagonist and especially the actor playing him were older, and the karate fights and such were fairly light in terms of graphic impact. Here, the blows are decidedly harder and more visceral, and I'm frankly surprised the pic got away with a PG rather than PG-13 rating in terms of that violence.
While that makes it seem more realistic, it does have a certain wince factor that could easily take some viewers out of enjoying the film (although it ultimately does make one yearn a bit harder for the eventual comeuppance). Some have similarly complained about the young age factor in terms of the romantic subplot between Dre and Meiying, but as that borders between friendship and love (as oft occurs in those in-between years), I didn't have any issues there.
The other distracting thing, though, is the film's length. While the 1984 pic is listed with a running time of 126 minutes, it didn't feel terribly long (although I'll admit it's been decades since I've seen it and might feel differently now). This one's 132 minutes feels padded at times. Much of that's probably from the occasional travelogue moments when the cast and crew descend upon (and move within and fly over, etc.) the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and other panoramic Chinese landmarks, all as James Horner's score goes into sweeping mode. It's all quite pretty and impressive to behold, but it somewhat feels shoehorned into the proceedings (rumors are that's due to China Film Group Corp. ponying up some of the production bucks).
Even so, and despite my distaste for remakes in general, I was pleasantly surprised by this offering. No, it's not remotely original and yes, it's incredibly predictable (even for those not familiar with the predecessor). And cutting 20 to 30 minutes of material would have made the story tighter and thus alleviated seat shifting. That said, Smith and Chan work wonderfully together, and despite the aforementioned issues, their characters and the storyline still manage to engage and entertain (and I haven't heard such an enthusiastic response from kids watching a movie in a long time). "The Karate Kid" might be the surprise of 2010 and rates as a 6 out of 10.
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