| The Karate Kid IV: The Next Karate Kid (1994) Cast:Pat Morita, Hilary Swank, Michael Ironside, Chris Conrad With Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio, thankfully gone considering he would be 32) gone, Mr. Myiagi (Morita) trains Julie Pierce(Swank) in the fine arts of karate and along the way helps her beat the sadistic bullies and guard (Ironside) in this embarrassing sequel which manages to amplify the problems of # 2 and # 3 and along the way makes those out to be oscar winners in comparison to this dull garbage. Well the real novel approach on this formula was; " Let's have Mr Myiagi teach karate to a girl!" Of course nobody else seems to have remembered that a movie needs a story, heart and well a script to make it work past it's "novel" touch. The Next Karate Kid is so bad that it could've been made for the Disney channel. The others at least featured Morita in good form, however this time he looks so awkward that i'm shocked he didn't win a "Golden Rasberry" for his awful hammy performance. Swank is somehow even worse, especially that she comes off obnoxious and therefore the teacher and student angle never takes shape. Ironside is merely adequate but his villain has nothing to do, despite Ironside's usually effective performances, the script makes him into a villain more at home in a Jean-Claude Van Damme thriller, rather than a Karate Kid villain. All of this is just hideously boring, with numerous scenes of Morita and Swank adjusting to each other because he's an old man and she's a girl! The Next Karate Kid is simply put, a rotten sequel, which thankfully killed off this tired franchise once and for all. D.Christopher Cain* |
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