Look, it's not that I doubt the sincerity of anyone involved, or of what they brought to the picture. If someone wants to make their own version of a time-honored classic, broadly speaking there's no especial reason why they shouldn't do just that. Tell the stories you want to tell, and have a good time doing it. That generosity of spirit is not applicable across the board, however; I've seen movies from some folks who convinced me in one fell swoop that they should never make movies again. I sat to watch 'The martial arts kid' knowing full well it would be a knock-off of 'The karate kid,' and with very low expectations, but I'll watch pretty much anything, and hey, I'm a fan of at least a couple folks that were involved in this. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long - truly, within the first minutes - to start to make an impression, and it's an emphatically bad one. And that impression sadly only gets worse as the minutes tick by.
From top to bottom this is extraordinarily, painfully, excruciatingly heavy-handed, lacking all tact and nuance, and coming off as extremely forced and artificial as a result. This describes without fail the direction of filmmaker Michael Baumgarten, and every last trace of the screenplay he developed with co-writer Adam W. Marsh. Dialogue, characters, scene writing, plot development, and the narrative generally all suffer from an astounding, bewildering bluntness that fundamentally makes the picture almost impossible to actually enjoy. Case in point, the big showdown between two major supporting characters is inevitable, and gratifying as a rudimentary concept, yet even as it's written in this one instance the scenario is flagrantly overcooked. As another example, a panoply of supporting characters, seemingly portrayed by reputed real life martial artists, get introduced at one point or another - but the inclusions are little more than walk-on parts, cameos, and their involvement (casting and writing alike) comes across as wholly arbitrary, superfluous, and ingenuine. Meanwhile, maybe some day I'll see something else he stars in and my mind will be changed, but it also becomes plainly evident in no time that Jansen Panettiere, portraying protagonist Robbie, possesses acting skills that are meager and wooden. Ordinarily I might chalk up such apparent flaws to poor guidance from the director, and to be sure, I repeat that Baumgarten's contribution is rotten - yet for the fact that other cast members are able to shine through the layers of stiff contrivance to at least some small degree, to inject at least a modicum of earnestness or personality into the proceedings, only accentuates Panettiere's deficiencies.
And about that cast. I feel so bad for Kathryn Newton; I know what she's capable of, and she's forced into a direly small corner here. She tries her best, and for what it's worth she gives the best performance of the whole film, yet nonetheless this might be the worst thing she's ever been involved in. Cynthia Rothrock and Don Wilson I recognize as highly capable martial artists, and though their acting skills aren't up to the same level, at least they're having fun here. Those in smaller supporting parts demonstrate a regrettable range of skill, varying from the genuineness of Newton, to the baseline satisfactory displays from Rothrock and Wilson, to the laughable gaucheness we see from Panettiere. Meanwhile, I know the reputation of James Lew, and the works he has been a part of in the past, yet his choreography of fights in 'The martial arts kid' mostly just feels altogether weak-kneed; only at the climax does it seem like we're getting a more complete image of his capabilities in that regard, or those of the cast in terms of fighting skills. True, one might argue that this is at least in part owing to the more family-friendly nature of the production, tempering the violence - yet the themes this would seem to play with also rather run counter to that subdued slant.
Oh, and here's one more thing - about those themes. It's safe to say that throughout the runtime the screenplay is fostering discrete notions, Big Ideas it wishes to impart about the use of fighting skills, and of violence in daily life. These are nothing special per se, nothing we haven't seen before, but admirable nevertheless. So why in the last twenty minutes or so are those themes willfully abandoned by the filmmakers, and gladly abandoned by the characters that espoused them? I'm hard-pressed in this moment to name another feature that dared to contradict itself, but here we are.
There are, honestly, some good ideas here. There are small flits of cleverness, or some moments are done just well enough by one means or another that I feel like the needle might actually move past "bottom of the barrel." Unfortunately, any time such potential positivity arises, it is surrounded on all sides by far worse and cringe-worthy inclusions. I spent a lot of these 100 minutes just yelling in confounded disbelief at what I was witnessing. One might try to argue in the utmost spirit of magnanimity that this was geared toward kids, so the movie was toned down and simplified for a younger audience. If that's the case, I would counter that kids are smarter than we give them credit for, and this goes too far in that direction in a way that rather talks down to any youthful audience members. (Which again raises the specter of inconsistency where the themes are concerned.) Once more, I commend the sincerity of everyone involved. Sincerity can help a feature to go the extra mile when it otherwise struggles. Sincerity alone can't carry the day, however, and this is flagging and flailing in too many ways to attain real fun. Whatever mild value it has to offer, whatever attractants may have lured one in to check it out, I'm sad to say that 'The martial arts kid' is less a viewing experience than it is a chore. I won't stop anyone from watching it if they like, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't recommend against it.
From top to bottom this is extraordinarily, painfully, excruciatingly heavy-handed, lacking all tact and nuance, and coming off as extremely forced and artificial as a result. This describes without fail the direction of filmmaker Michael Baumgarten, and every last trace of the screenplay he developed with co-writer Adam W. Marsh. Dialogue, characters, scene writing, plot development, and the narrative generally all suffer from an astounding, bewildering bluntness that fundamentally makes the picture almost impossible to actually enjoy. Case in point, the big showdown between two major supporting characters is inevitable, and gratifying as a rudimentary concept, yet even as it's written in this one instance the scenario is flagrantly overcooked. As another example, a panoply of supporting characters, seemingly portrayed by reputed real life martial artists, get introduced at one point or another - but the inclusions are little more than walk-on parts, cameos, and their involvement (casting and writing alike) comes across as wholly arbitrary, superfluous, and ingenuine. Meanwhile, maybe some day I'll see something else he stars in and my mind will be changed, but it also becomes plainly evident in no time that Jansen Panettiere, portraying protagonist Robbie, possesses acting skills that are meager and wooden. Ordinarily I might chalk up such apparent flaws to poor guidance from the director, and to be sure, I repeat that Baumgarten's contribution is rotten - yet for the fact that other cast members are able to shine through the layers of stiff contrivance to at least some small degree, to inject at least a modicum of earnestness or personality into the proceedings, only accentuates Panettiere's deficiencies.
And about that cast. I feel so bad for Kathryn Newton; I know what she's capable of, and she's forced into a direly small corner here. She tries her best, and for what it's worth she gives the best performance of the whole film, yet nonetheless this might be the worst thing she's ever been involved in. Cynthia Rothrock and Don Wilson I recognize as highly capable martial artists, and though their acting skills aren't up to the same level, at least they're having fun here. Those in smaller supporting parts demonstrate a regrettable range of skill, varying from the genuineness of Newton, to the baseline satisfactory displays from Rothrock and Wilson, to the laughable gaucheness we see from Panettiere. Meanwhile, I know the reputation of James Lew, and the works he has been a part of in the past, yet his choreography of fights in 'The martial arts kid' mostly just feels altogether weak-kneed; only at the climax does it seem like we're getting a more complete image of his capabilities in that regard, or those of the cast in terms of fighting skills. True, one might argue that this is at least in part owing to the more family-friendly nature of the production, tempering the violence - yet the themes this would seem to play with also rather run counter to that subdued slant.
Oh, and here's one more thing - about those themes. It's safe to say that throughout the runtime the screenplay is fostering discrete notions, Big Ideas it wishes to impart about the use of fighting skills, and of violence in daily life. These are nothing special per se, nothing we haven't seen before, but admirable nevertheless. So why in the last twenty minutes or so are those themes willfully abandoned by the filmmakers, and gladly abandoned by the characters that espoused them? I'm hard-pressed in this moment to name another feature that dared to contradict itself, but here we are.
There are, honestly, some good ideas here. There are small flits of cleverness, or some moments are done just well enough by one means or another that I feel like the needle might actually move past "bottom of the barrel." Unfortunately, any time such potential positivity arises, it is surrounded on all sides by far worse and cringe-worthy inclusions. I spent a lot of these 100 minutes just yelling in confounded disbelief at what I was witnessing. One might try to argue in the utmost spirit of magnanimity that this was geared toward kids, so the movie was toned down and simplified for a younger audience. If that's the case, I would counter that kids are smarter than we give them credit for, and this goes too far in that direction in a way that rather talks down to any youthful audience members. (Which again raises the specter of inconsistency where the themes are concerned.) Once more, I commend the sincerity of everyone involved. Sincerity can help a feature to go the extra mile when it otherwise struggles. Sincerity alone can't carry the day, however, and this is flagging and flailing in too many ways to attain real fun. Whatever mild value it has to offer, whatever attractants may have lured one in to check it out, I'm sad to say that 'The martial arts kid' is less a viewing experience than it is a chore. I won't stop anyone from watching it if they like, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't recommend against it.