Tag: Jackie Chan

Karate Kid: Legends (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It’s a Karate Kid movie, can you not guess the plot?

Everything I knew about the Karate Kid franchise before I watched this movie:

  • There are at least 2 movies called The Karate Kid starring Ralph Macchio, one starring Will Smith’s kid, and a TV series.
  • He won with a kick to the fucking face.
  • Sweep the leg!

So it was a risky choice to go see Karate Kid: Legends (KK: L, pronounced Ka-kool) at the cinema when you consider that a lot of the hype was based around “here’s something that links both the Karate Kid timelines”. There was a chance it would be full of references I wouldn’t get, characters I had no knowledge of, etc, that I’d be lost in a sea of references without a paddle. Truth be told, I only went to see this because there was a Secret Screening at 7:30 and I don’t like walking down to the cinema that late, so I thought I’d see another film beforehand so I can get there early.

I’m very glad I watched this. As I said, I have no idea what the previous films/series are like, so I can’t compare (although I am watching the first one right now, and I am spotting similarities). But on its own? It works. There’s zero continuity lockout; you can watch this knowing nothing and still grasp what’s going on. It does a great job of showing who these characters are, but not taking so long to do it that its retreading what fans of the franchise already know. It explains the concepts in an audience-friendly way. It reminds me of playing a Super Mario game, you are shown new things without you even realising it.

This won’t win any “best film of 2025” awards, but it’s incredibly competent. The performances are what they need. Jackie Chan is still one of the best physical comedic performers in cinema. The presence of Joshua Jackson reminds you of the harsh realities of aging, but he is so damn good in it. Ben Wang could lead the franchise if they wanted to make more. I particularly liked his chemistry with Sadie Stanley (previously seen in The Goldbergs, which is a fun series to watch). The script pairs them together waaaaay too quickly, which could come off as fake, but the two have a natural chemistry, which does help make it believable.

The fights themselves are average. But they do also lead to a lowlight of the film. There’s a moment where Macchio and Chan fight to help Li Fong. It should be epic, it should be monumental. But it’s shot so poorly that it’s kind of difficult to figure out what’s going on. It’s not a bad scene by any stretch, but it doesn’t live up to expectations at all.

On a plus side, production-wise, the music is brilliant. The choices, the way they’re used, etc, really sell the location. It doesn’t go with the obvious picks, but it somehow feels New York, the music has an energy, it’s the sound of a bustling city that never sleeps.

At the time of writing, KK: L has a bafflingly low RT score of 53%. I don’t get that. I watched three films that day, and this was the best one. It was genuinely hilarious at times, so I’m not sure what else these reviewers were looking for. It’s the fourth or fifth (I can’t be bothered to check) movie in a franchise I’ve never watched, and I still enjoyed it. That alone demonstrates the quality of this.

2023 In Film: Day Nine (The Almost Amazing)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Aftersun

Ups: So many sweet moments.

So very sweet

Nostalgic

Downs: A lot happens off-camera and goes unsaid, which some people might not like.

Some shots could linger a bit longer

Could do more with the present-day sequences.

Best Moment: The Losing My Religion scene does a lot for something so simple.

Worst Moment: When the dad is talking about his 11th birthday. It’s a very poignant scene, but I don’t like how it was shot. I get why Charlotte Wells did that, but it just didn’t work for me.

Best Performer: This is tough. Both leads are perfect. Ordinarily, I’d give it to Frankie Corio because Paul Mescal got enough attention, and I’m always more impressed by a younger performer. But I’m going to break from tradition and give it to Paul Mescal because of how much depth he has to give every scene. He’s not just a dad, he’s a dad who is trying to give his daughter a memorable holiday while he’s suffering from depression.

Opening: Home video of the dad dancing, being recorded by his 11-year-old daughter. We know this as she points out her age, which is a very smart way of getting her age out there. The footage then freezes and starts going weird. Artfully done. It did make me think the whole film would be found-footage style.

Closing: Calum says goodbye to Sophie at the airport then shuts the camera off. I know that sounds boring and meaningless, but in the context of this, it’s incredibly powerful and will bring a tear to your eye. Then a slow pan of the room current Sophie is in as she watches the videos.

Best Line: “I just feel a bit down or something. Don’t you ever feel like you’ve just done a whole amazing day and then you come home and you feel tired and down and it feels like your bones don’t work. They’re just tired and everything is tired. Like you’re sinking”

Original Review here

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

Ups: Very sweet.

This could so easily be creepy, but is skillfully directed so that it’s not.

Funny.

Surprisingly timely

Good performances.

Downs: Will put off certain audiences.

Changes a few things from the book which might annoy some people.

Best Moment: When she finally speaks to Laura. Very sweet and allows Laura to showcase her character more.

Worst Moment: The grandparents visiting doesn’t seem to do that much in the script.

Best Performer: Abby Ryder Forston

Opening: Margaret gets back from camp and finds out she’s moving house. It might have been nice to see more of her settled before the move, as at the moment all we see is “moving anxious Margaret”

Closing: She gets her period.

Best Line: I’ve been looking for you, God. I looked for you in Temple. I looked for you in Church. I didn’t feel you at all. Why? Why, God? Why do I only feel you when I’m alone?

Original Review here

Creed 3

Ups: Better fight/action scenes than some big-budget blockbusters

Emotional

Compelling story.

Downs: Rushed middle section.

We don’t get to see Damian as the champ (or the reaction to him)

Best Moment: The final fight. Incredibly creative with how it’s shot. Really helps you understand what being in that situation is like.

Worst Moment: The shop theft. It’s a good moment, but it’s repeated too much.

Best Performer: Phylicia Rashad.

Opening: Flashback to a young Adonis Creed watching his friend Damian win a boxing match, then Adonis beats the crap out of some guy. Gets you hooked in, lets you know of the characters’ relationship etc. But it’s a little hollow. There’s nothing gained from watching the moment again, it’s all very surface-level.

Closing: Adonis boxes with his daughter. It’s a very sweet moment but I feel that relationship could have been fleshed out a tiny bit more.

Best Line: The higher you get, the harder it gets.

Original Review here

Scrapper

Ups: Great performances

Likeable characters

Funny

It’s nice to see a British working-class movie where people are happy.

Probably the most creatively shot movie of the year

Downs: It’s a bit strange that nobody at the school questions the fact that her uncle is called Winston Churchill, or how she’s paying for everything. She is shown making some money, but will that be enough to cover all bills?

Characters don’t develop that much.

It doesn’t feel like some of the characters are taking the situation as seriously as they should.

Best Moment: When Georgie and her dad play a game at a train station where they imagine what other people on the station are saying. They do this for a few minutes before someone on the other side says “we can hear you, you know”.

Worst Moment: The revealing voicemail, feels slightly underwhelming.

Best Performer: Lola Campbell

Opening: An almost empty house, and Georgie marking off where she is on the stages of grief chart.

Closing: The two enter a truce to get to know each other. Sweet, but could be better. It’s not helped by the fact the conflict between them doesn’t feel that divisive.

Best Line: “we were just making sure all these bikes are road safe. Oh, yours isn’t by the way” A great demonstration of her quick thinking but also her childish nature that she thinks it will work. I mean, it does, but still.

Original Review here

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Ups: Looks fantastic.

Funny.

Great anarchic energy.

Downs: The constant pop culture references can get tired quickly.

If it’s not followed up then it will be a huge disappointment

Best Moment: The “What’s Up” scene.

Worst Moment: The horse mutation. Only because it feels really weak compared to the rest of the mutation effects.

Best Performer: Jackie Chan

Opening: The genesis of the turtles. It’s somewhat standard to see a father figure/creator get murdered in the opening of a kids’ movie, but it’s rarely as cruel as it is here.

Closing: The Turtles go to school and get to live out their dreams of being normal teenagers. But Cynthia aims to bring Shredder to defeat them.

Best Line: “Our dads definitely not a giant rat”

“That makes me think he is a rat”

Original Review here

The Blackening

Ups: Hilarious

The characters all feel real

Downs: Needs a better soundtrack

Jermaine Fowler feels a bit out of place.

Could be more violent.

Best Moment: The group answering the question about Friends.

Worst Moment: The reveal. A bit weak and predictable

Best Performer: Grace Byers

Opening: Standard “characters we don’t know get kidnapped/killed” horror opening. It comes back later and is a major plot point so it works.

Closing: The fire department sprays the survivors with a hose. Made me laugh a lot.

Best Line: You got Rosa Parks on your shirt, right? Would she be sitting down right now?

Original review here

Totally Killer

Ups: Her mum actually shows some decent self defence skills. Makes a change from the usual female survivor we see in films like this.

Some really fluid camera work.

Incredibly satirical.

Great soundtrack

Not enough horror movies use Banarama

Kiernan Shipka is actually really good

Downs: The editing is a bit choppy.

The reveal of the first killer would have been better if we knew more about them.

Wastes some potentially interesting ideas.

Best Moment: There’s an action scene on a centrifugal force fairground ride. Haven’t seen anything like it before and it’s incredibly creative.

Worst Moment: Conversation with her and her mother at the start, mainly because of the editing.

Best Performer: Kiernan Shipka

Opening: Narration setting up the story of the original murders, we don’t see the murders, but we do see the crime scene reconstruction. An effective way of doing a scene like this on a low budget and not having it come off as cheap.

Closing: Lauren hands over a notebook listing all the things which are different because of the time travel. Really cool and a way to do the “what happened to everybody” cliché in a way that’s original

Best Line: “Just think. Maybe if she did do blow jobs, she’d still be alive.”

“yeah, let’s not make that the lesson”

Opening Review here

Wonka

Ups: Some great jokes.

Looks fantastic.

Sense of playfulness.

If you’re a fan of British comedy then spotting people you recognise becomes the greatest game of “Where’s Wally” ever

Downs: Chalamet can’t really sing like he needs to for this.

Some cast members feel underused.

Best Moment: The “reveal” of the secret ingredient his mum put in chocolate. Yes it’s obvious and trite, but it’s so damn sweet.

Worst Moment: The reveal that he can’t read seems like it’s just there to explain him signing the contract.

Best Performer: Calah Lane, she’s the beating heart of the whole thing.

Opening: Wonka sings a song about his hopes and dreams. Sets the tone perfectly; funny, charming, and weird.

Closing: The factory is built. Meh. But then the credits show what happened to everybody, and it’s done delightfully.

Best Line: May I present, Willy Wonka’s wild and wonderful wishy-washy Wonka walker! Please, don’t make me say that again.

Original Review here

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: When an interdimensional rupture unravels reality, an unlikely hero must channel her newfound powers to fight bizarre and bewildering dangers from the multiverse as the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

This is a really hard review to write. It’s difficult to put into words exactly how I feel about this film, and what it means to me. I’ll try:

It’s a cunting masterpiece.

Crude, yes. But “masterpiece” does not do justice. “motherfucking masterpiece” also doesn’t seem strong enough to demonstrate my feelings for this. It’s astounding, a work of art. This is one of the best things I’ve ever witnessed. Sometimes my end of year awards are difficult. Last year, for example, it was genuinely difficult to decide between Mouthpiece and Come True for best film. Quite a few were similarly difficult. I’m saying this now, this will be nominated for A LOT in the end of year reviews, and will win a lot of them. It’s already pretty much a dead cert for best film. It’s over two and a half hours long, and my first thought when I left the cinema was “I can’t wait to see this again”.

Directed by duo called Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), who have a big history in music videos. You can tell this with how they direct some of the action sequences, there’s a flow to them which works perfectly. It’s not just “sound playing alongside music”, it’s part of the film. It works alongside the images to create a collective whole vision (apart from the scenes with the bagel, then it’s a hole vision. You know, because a bagel has a hole in it). The only feature film they’ve created before this was Swiss Army Man, which I’m yet to see but I’ve heard it’s very strange.

Now I’ve seen this, I can believe it. The story is weird, and there’s a strong sense of “look, just go with it” throughout the whole thing. But it actually makes sense, in a weird way. It’s written and directed in a way that even when it does go completely off the rails, you are able to follow it. Don’t know if you saw Mad Max: Fury Road, but that managed to do something great in that it was full of action, but because the action was nearly always in the centre of the frame, no matter how chaotic it got, you were able to follow it. This does the narrative equivalent of that and I love it so much.

All the performances are on point. Michelle Yeoh continues to be one of the greatest physical performers in the world today, she must be a dream for choreographers to work with as they don’t need to set up cameras so they can film each bit individually and edit them together. They can just set a camera up and let her do her thing. Her role was originally supposed to go to Jackie Chan, and that would have worked, but it would have been different. I’m not sure it would have been quite as good. The mother/daughter relationship is key to this film working, and I’m not sure it would have worked quite as well with a father/daughter one.

Speaking of the daughter, Stephanie Hsu absolutely nails the performance. Giving her the right amount of rebellion and need for acceptance. Certain plot points could you make you dislike her, but she’s played with enough vulnerability that you want what’s best for, while also recognising when she does awful things. Originally it was going to be Awkwafina. Now, I LOVE Awkwafina, she’s often the best part about most things she stars in. But again, I think it’s best it wasn’t her. I don’t think she would have been as effective as Hsu is.

It’s also good to see Ke Huy Quan back, best known for his role as Short Round in the Indiana Jones movies. Hopefully, this leads to a career resurgence for him as he has a really difficult role in this, it’s both physical and emotional. He has to make you believe he can beat the crap out of you, but also make you believe he’s the kindest, meekest person on the planet. He manages this, he’s talented enough that you can tell which universes version of him he’s currently playing, just by his body language. In a lesser film it would be the best performance, in this, he’s just a VERY VERY good part of an excellent ensemble.

As you can guess. I loved this. It had everything I want. It had laughs, it had heart (I heard genuine tears from fellow audience members many times), it had character, it had meta references, it had action, it had fingers made of hot dogs, it had a dildo being used as a weapon, it had glitter, it had bondage, it had pizza, it had Jenny Slate, it had Jamie Lee Curtis, it had a racoon controlling someone, it has despair, it has hope, it has everything.

Everywhere

All at once.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Martial-arts master Shang-Chi confronts the past he thought he left behind when he’s drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Marvel film that had so many people WANTING it to fail. The internet seemed full of people who were desperate for any bad news so that they could say “see! Go woke, go broke!”. They NEEDED it to be bad. Sucks for them then that is incredible. Comic book movies need a compelling villain. Loki was the only bearable part of the first two films, and the villain problem is why some Marvel films haven’t quite hit as they needed to. Wenwu is one of the most compelling villains in the MCU so far. Usually a lot of their villains are “same powers as the hero, but evil”. Sadly, this does do that, but the fact that the villain is the heroes father adds an emotional level to it. Especially since he’s not inherently evil, he’s misguided and being controlled by forces beyond his control. He was a villain before the events of the film, a figure of pure fear for people across the globe. But by the time the film starts all he wants is to get his wife back. That’s what inspires everything he does, and it’s weirdly beautiful. The downside of him is there is so much time spent on him, that the bigger bad that he’s doing it for only really matters in the third act, and doesn’t last for long. It’s his desire and love which leads to the third act CGI battle.

That’s the biggest issue, how underwhelming that final third is. It seems too big that it becomes impersonal, which considering the main core of the film is personal relationships is a bit weird. Instead of being a controlled dynamic set piece, it’s just CGI against CGI, and lets be honest, CGI hasn’t exactly been the MCU’s strong point so far (just look at some of the flying scenes in Captain Marvel for example).

It’s weird as there are some great fights in this. There’s a great rhythm to the way the fights operate. The way they use the surroundings brings to mind the best of Jackie Chan, where the layout of the room effects the way the action operate and it becomes almost a puzzle coming together, and means every fight is different. They also do a great job of demonstrating character through the action. You could show somebody the bus fight and they would get not only the main character, but also Awkwafina’s character.

Time for me to mention it. Awkwafina steals the show here (much like she did in Raya). She’s absolutely hilarious and serves as the audience in terms of introduction to the world, with Shang-Chi explaining everything for her. An incredibly unsubtle way of doing it, but it’s effective. She gives the best lines of the film, which considering the return of the fake Mandarin also happens (spoilers btw) is really something. One downside of her character? Her character arc doesn’t really work. She starts off as the standard “uncertain what to do in life and constantly changes plans” character, then picks up firing a bow and arrow, and is unnaturally good at it. She becomes good at it so far, and becomes so important in the final fight that it feels like Marvel knew she’d be a popular character and wanted to make her powerful. Does the MCU not have any normal characters? It’s okay to have characters who can’t fight, the way they’re treating it seems to be that if you can’t kill people, you’re worthless.

The mid-credits do a good job of setting up the future, with Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner working together (with Banner in full human form). If this is picked up in the future it could be exciting, but I doubt they’re going to deal with it in the new Spider-man movie (how fucking stoked are you guys for that, btw?) so might have to wait a while for that storyline to be moved forward. Eternals is released this year but that will have to be introducing so many characters that I’m not sure they’ll have time to deal with the ones we already know. The Doctor Strange, Thor, and Black Panther films will probably have their own things going on. So the best bet will be in The Marvels, and that’s not out until November next year. The MCU is juggling a lot of balls right now (lol, I said balls) and it’s going to take some skill for them to make the whole thing a coherent narrative again. Fingers crossed.

That’s why I think this is a great film. It works brilliantly on its own, you’re not there thinking you have an unfinished story like you do with something like Brightburn (or even Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 to an extent), but it also sets up the future plans. I’m excited to see what happens, and I like being excited for cinema. When I do the round-ups at the end of the year I can sometimes struggle to not repeat myself, but there is so much I didn’t mention in this review. The lead performance, his sister, the brutal nature of some of the fights, hotel california, Abomination, Wong, the sonic connections. There is so much to talk about with this, and that’s really what you need, to feel excited, to become a fan again, to the point where you become like a little kid describing something he loves “oh, and another cool thing, and then this happened” etc.