The Next Karate Kid

I can’t believe that director Christopher Cain, who replaced John G. Avildsen, thought that there was potential to make one more Karate Kid sequel. What story did he see that could have been made into another sequel? He should have just left it at three movies, especially since the third one was negatively received. I thought the story arc of these movies ended with the third movie.

When I rented the DVD from the library, the cover said both “The Karate Kid, Part III” and “The Next Karate Kid.” At first I thought it was a select screen to choose which one you wanted to watch, since DVD’s have that feature. It wasn’t until I figured out that I had to flip the disc to the other side in order to watch “The Next Karate Kid.” Was the film really that bad that it didn’t get its own DVD, but instead had to be put on the back of the other sequel that many people didn’t like?

Even Ralph Macchio didn’t reprise his main role in this one, which I feel glad that he didn’t. However, the bad part about it is that there isn’t really much of a follow up made to his character anywhere in this movie. There’s just a passing mention of him, and that’s about it.

As much as I don’t want to review this horrific sequel, I think I should just get it over with, so I will not delay this any longer. This is the 1994 sequel, which is also the worst sequel in this series and one of the worst sequels ever, “The Next Karate Kid.”

The movie opens in Boston, where Mr. Miyagi is attending a commendation for the 442^nd Regiment in World War II. There, he meets the widow of his commanding officer, Louisa Pierce, played by Constance Towers. She invites him over to her house, where Mr. Miyagi meets Louisa’s granddaughter, Julie Pierce, played by Hilary Swank in one of her first roles. She apparently is a very uptight high school teen since her parents died in a car accident, and her relationship with Louisa is not so strong. Mr. Miyagi tries to solve this by sending Louisa back to his house in California to take care of his bonsai trees, while he stays in Boston to take care of Julie and her aggressive behavior.

At school, Julie is hiding a hawk named Angel, voiced by Frank Welker, who has an injured wing, and is constantly harassed by the head of her school’s security called Alpha Elite, Ned, played by Michael Cavalieri. I really hate this character since he is such a snotty-nose brat. Alpha Elite is led by a man named Colonel Dugan, played by Michael Ironside. You know that he is the villain, but how come he always likes to play that? Is it because his eyebrows easily give it away? Also, if you thought John Kreese from Cobra Kai was insane, this guy takes it to the nth degree. I feel like the school didn’t do a background check on him. What he teaches his comrades are just odd and cruel. One of the members that doesn’t make the team is Julie’s crush named Eric McGowen, played by Chris Conrad.

One of the biggest problems with this movie is that they changed the character of Mr. Miyagi a little bit. In the first “The Karate Kid” movie, Mr. Miyagi clearly said to Daniel that he never taught anyone karate. However, when Julie said to Mr. Miyagi that her father taught her karate, who was taught by Julie’s grandfather, Mr. Miyagi tells Julie that he taught Julie’s grandfather karate as a way of thanking him for saving Mr. Miyagi’s life during WWII. WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?!?!?!? IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!!!

Julie is such a jerk to Mr. Miyagi where she is telling him that she doesn’t need any work from school to know where she is going with her life, since she already has that part planned out. What direction are you going in, down on the streets where you have no life!? Additionally, how dare she insult Mr. Miyagi by saying he can’t speak English!!!! You do not disrespect Mr. Miyagi!!! She also says to Mr. Miyagi that he doesn’t know anything about girls, and he admits that he needs to learn a lot about girls while also saying that boys are easier. I agree with him since Daniel never gave him this hard of a time.

Julie gets suspended from school for a few weeks because she gets caught sneaking in to school to take care of Angel, so Mr. Miyagi takes her to a Monastery to teach her karate, and she is so impatient on not being able to learn it quickly. Once again, Daniel didn’t understand Mr. Miyagi’s way of teaching, but he never gave Mr. Miyagi this much disrespect and impatience to not being able to learn anything right away! The Grand Abbot, played by Arsenio ‘Sonny’ Trinidad, saves an insect from being squashed by Julie’s shoe, and she thinks it’s stupid that nothing is killed in a Monastery. What is this girl’s problem? Does she not have any respect for anyone or anything! Because I clearly think she doesn’t!!

Mr. Miyagi wants Julie and Eric to go to the prom together, but how does Mr. Miyagi guess her dress size at the store? He just gives some vague descriptions, so how is the tailor able to guess the right dress size for Julie? At the prom, why does one of the Alpha Elite members decide to bungee jump from the ceiling of the gymnasium and into the table? Ned claims that his comrade was brave to try it, but HE BROKE HIS ARM YOU IDIOT!!!! Are you saying that he was brave to try acting like a moron!?!?!?

Throughout the movie, Ned keeps talking about the docks and we don’t get to see them until the final act. One thing I don’t understand is: what is up with Alpha Elite!?!?!? They “do not” qualify as high school security. They are a gang! Why is that? They blew up Eric’s car then gang up and beat him down! Colonel Dugan says to finish him off since he was training them, for what I can think is, murder. THIS IS SCHOOL SECURITY!!! WHERE IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION DOES IT SAY THAT MURDERING IS A PART OF THE JOB!?!?!? SCHOOL SECURITY WRITE HALL PASSES AND SEND STUDENTS TO THE CAFETERIA FOR LUNCH!!!!

Colonel Dugan says that the war isn’t over because one battle is lost, which I don’t get what war he is talking about. WHO ON EARTH IS THIS GUY!?!?! WHERE DID THEY FIND HIM!?!?! Whoever hired this guy didn’t carefully evaluate him before giving him the job.

How come Mr. Miyagi claims that he always tries to look for ways to not fight, but always ends up in fights? He fights in every movie.

In the end, this movie is really bad, but I do give credit to Hilary Swank for making her character grow throughout the movie. She does end up being likable, but she can’t save this sequel at all by making her character become likable. My advice is to never bother with this movie because you will not like it at all. I know that the only female characters that little girls could look up to at the time were the Power Rangers girls from the shows, but they should have done a better job in this movie to portray a good, strong female role model for little girls. Even though Julie did grow and got better throughout the duration of the movie, she didn't come off as a good female role model for little girls. If you didn’t like “The Karate Kid, Part III,” you will definitely not like this one at all. Instead, you will wish that the series just stayed as a trilogy. So don't torture yourself by watching this cinematic garbage with "The Karate Kid" name on it.

Oh boy, that was a relief. I was happy that they never made another sequel, but I do know there was the cartoon that I never heard of or watched until The Nostalgia Critic and James Rolfe mentioned it briefly in their videos. However, they did make a remake to “The Karate Kid,” which I will look at next week in the finale to “The Karate Kid Month.”