BEFORE: I hate to be predictable, but I also hate leaving a movie series unfiinished. Pat Morita carries over from last night's film, but Ralph Macchio does not.
THE PLOT: Mr. Miyagi is back and he takes a new pupil under his wing - a troubled teenage girl.
AFTER: Well, this was slightly more intelligent than "Karate Kid III", but there were still quite a few problems. The dialogue was still quite clunky (it's not exactly Chekhov, I know) and the character motivations were still a bit unclear. The worst offender was the lead "evil" teen, who somehow thinks he can get a girl to make out with him if he threatens her. So...does he like her, or hate her? He seems quite confused about how this romance thing is supposed to happen. Maybe some people have their wires crossed this way, but it doesn't make sense for a movie character.
Once again, karate is portrayed as the answer to everything (take that, Stephen Hawking...) - it's how you stop sexual predators and bullies, it's how you give discipline to a rebellious teen, and once again it gets a nice shine on Mr. Miyagi's sweet ride.
A couple things just don't seem to fit - like an older man living with a teen girl when he's not her parent or legal guardian. Taking her across state lines, even if it's to seek inner peace at a monastery, still might be considered a felony in some states. Then we've got karate lessons that turn into dance lessons at one point - yeah, it's ballroom dancing, but it still might be a bit over that line.
I try to always read about a movie's plotholes and technical mistakes on IMDB after each night's viewing, but tonight I think I caught one they missed. In a scene set in Boston, some characters go bowling, and it's the standard U.S. big-ball bowling. Having grown up in New England, I know firsthand that Boston is a candlepin bowling town - at least it was when I lived there, but maybe they've added a few new bowling alleys since I moved to NY. For the uninitiated, candlepin bowling has the smaller balls, three balls bowled per frame, and the pins don't get reset between throws (the downed pins don't get cleared away). For the first two decades of my life, that was the only bowling I knew - I did see big-ball bowling in movies and on TV, but I just associated it with "The Flintstones", since it was about as real to me as cartoons were.
I'm sort of regretting that when I started this blog, I didn't make a habit of declaring what, exactly, I've learned from watching each film. For example, tonight I learned that girls are more difficult to raise than boys, you should always knock before entering a teen girl's bedroom (duh...), and that karate teachers don't mind being paid in homework. Oh, there was plenty of that Mr. Miyagi dime-store philosophy as well, but I think those points are much more salient, don't you?
Besides, all that stuff with the injured bird was just way too obvious a metaphor. They never really said what happened to Daniel-san, though. I hope he finally made it to college, and he just didn't have some kind of falling out with his sensei.
Also starring Hilary Swank (last seen in "Amelia"), Chris Conrad, Michael Ironside (last seen in "X-Men: First Class"), with a cameo from Walton Goggins.
RATING: 4 out of 10 subway cars
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