Karate Kid: Legends begins with an immediately miscalculated note. Rob Lieber's script instantly kicks off with a scene from the original Karate Kid (albeit this time with some new accompanying animation) featuring Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) explaining the whole "two branches, one tree" to a young Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). If Legends needs any prologue, though, it should concern Li Fong (Ben Wang) and the situation involving his deceased brother that led to fighting being banned in his household. That would’ve instantly lent weight and clarity to the fractured relationship between Fong and his single mother, Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen).
Alas, Legends opts for fan service right away. It's one of many weird touches in a total shrug of a movie.
Right after that prologue, Li Fong realizes that he'll soon be leaving Beijing, China behind. That means he's also ditching Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), the shifu whose been teaching him kung fu. Turns out Mr. Han is no longer just sharing his knowledge with Jaden Smith from 2010's Karate Kid remake. He's got a whole bunch of pupils to corral. Now he's got one less kid to worry about, as Fong is stuck navigating how to make it in the Big Apple. Persistent school bully Connor Day (Aramis Knight) and Dr. Fong forbidding all forms of fighting certainly isn't making adjusting to these new digs any easier. At least he's got help from neighbor Mia Lipani (Sadie Stanley), who runs a pizza shop with her dad Victor (Joshua Jackson).
The latter character establishes the newest plot detail in Legends. Former boxing champion Victor owes money to some bad dudes. After seeing Fong dispatch henchmen like he’s Bob Odenkirk in Nobody, Victor gets an idea. This kid should help retrain Victor for an upcoming fight. This is a Karate Kid movie about a youngster mentoring a middle-aged guy into improving his hand-to-hand combat skills. That subversion of the franchise’s normal mentor/mentee dynamics is at least mildly novel. However, Lieber's sole novel storytelling concept crumbles against strange sterility plaguing the entire movie.
Director Jonathan Entwistle and cinematographer Justin Brown both realize Legends with such lifeless imagery. The combination of a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, persistently clean environments (even the New York subway cars are pristine!), cramped framing, and groan-worthy "flourishes" like clumsy slow-motion make Legends look like a subpar streaming movie. Worst of all, all the fight sequences are realized dismally. British television and music video director Jonathan Entwistle’s lack of experience handling hand-to-hand skirmishes is glaringly apparent. Any Legends sequences trying to muster up some Chad Stahelski energy manifest with clunky editing and uninspired fight choreography.
Rote imagery only compounds problems in the Legends screenplay. This is a paint-by-numbers rendering of a standard legacy sequel realized with minimal panache. Big reveals of familiar characters or emotional moments (particularly when it comes to Dr. Fong) have no theatricality or gumption to ensure they leave an impact. More often than not, Karate Kid: Legends just comes off as what happens when you order Creed from Shein. Perhaps Lieber's writing could’ve exuded more fun if it were less crowded.
Some modern tentpoles, like the Wicked films, split one story across two films. Legends frustratingly goes in the opposite direction, cramming four plots into a single legacy sequel. The Victor/Li Fong dynamic is basically just the first half of Legends. Eventually, problems arise straining Fong and Lipani’s relationship. Simultaneously, severe money woes enter Fong’s world. The solution? Mr. Han travels from Beijing to New York to train his former pupil for the Five Boroughs tournament. This intense fighting competition could give Fong a tremendous cash prize, solving all his woes. Tragically, Stacy Keach does not show up to explain the names of those Five Boroughs.
This mission means Han needs to take another plane trip, this time to California, to recruit a now grown-up Daniel LaRusso to help train Fong in just a week for the tournament. Up to this point, Legends has at least been focused on just being a fish-out-of-water story of a kid adjusting to New York with the help of two new friends. Suddenly, it’s a free-for-all for Karate Kid mythology. Subverting the franchise’s typical character dynamics goes out the window. Now it’s time for the adults to once again impart wisdom to the youth. Along the way, LaRusso and Han will constantly spout quotes from their previous film appearances for all the adults in the room to hoot and holler at.
The scattered storytelling is already a problem on paper. Just pausing Li Fong’s storyline so Mr. Han can explain to LaRusso his heretofore-unknown relationship to Mr. Miyagi is insanely eyeroll-worthy. However, it also means Legends now becomes all montage and no breathing room. Seven days of training goes by in the blink of an eye. Fong and Lipani’s problems get resolved even more quickly. Even a heart-to-heart chat between Fong and LaRusso where the latter character passes on an important trinket transpires crammed in between bursts of training-centric physical comedy. Juggling a new Karate Kid story and so many nods to the past in a 94-minute timeframe leaves all the underdog drama inert.
No wonder the final tournament fight scene left me cold. Granted, it didn’t help that this finale, taking place outdoors on the top of a giant skyscraper, looks incredibly cheap. Close-ups of the Lipani’s and Mrs. Fong cheering on Li Fong are unintentionally hilarious thanks to both shoddy green screen work and how much these characters don’t look like they’re part of a larger crowd. They totally register as three or four actors standing alone on a soundstage. It’s a fittingly middling finish to a movie so lacking in imagination it resorts to needle drops “comically” fizzling out into record scratches multiple times.
At least the younger performers come out of Legends with their heads held high. Ben Wang is a fine leading man that exudes decent humanity in the earliest Legends sequences. Granted, Li Fong as a character is totally undercut by the script’s miscalculated doling out of his integral backstory. Even within this subpar writing, Wang demonstrates decent acting skills. Sadie Stanley, meanwhile, exhibits talent even while getting the worst dialogue in the entire script. Speaking of the cast, what a delight it was to see Ming Na-Wen in this! She doesn’t have much to do but be stern and say “no” to Li Fong, but it’s always a treat to see this star on the big screen.
As for Chan and Macchio, they’re acceptable, but the overstuffed screenplay doesn’t leave them with much to do. The latter Karate Kid veteran especially seems stranded, given how his character is so emotionally disconnected from Li Fong’s personal life. He's only here to make the audience happy rather than make this feature better. His underwhelming Karate Kid: Legends presence reflects what a disjointed mess the proceedings are. Some motion pictures can effortlessly juggle the present and yesteryear. Legends is not one of those titles. That’s apparent right from its prologue prioritizing the past over new characters. Shockingly flat imagery and countless uninspired pop song needle drops are just some of the problems underscoring this forgettable misfire. Not even an absurd Jaden Smith cameo could’ve jolted this title with energy.