Karate Kid: Legends and Lilo & Stitch

My wife and I watched Karate Kid: Legends, and I thought that it was a fun movie. It was a popcorn flick, and I would guess that those who made this movie were going after fans of the Karate Kid franchise, and more specifically, the Cobra Kai series. Besides a brief cameo at the end, this movie shows no real connection to Cobra Kai. I think that most would watch this movie to see Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio teaming up, and they had a few fun scenes together. Unfortunately, the main character, Li Fong, did not particularly stand out, nor did many of the other characters. The villain has very little backstory, so he just comes off as being the bad guy with a terrible attitude because the script demands it. A lot of the scenes are not given time to breathe due to the frenetic pacing. However, there was good action, and it was relatively easy to follow while not being too long.

We also watched the live-action Lilo & Stitch movie, which I liked a lot. I know that there were mixed opinions of the ending. However, there was a good family dynamic with Lilo and Stitch starting out as troublemakers. It was very easy at first to be frustrated with them both, as they tended to ruin things for Lilo’s sister, Nani, who was really having a tough time. They slowly get away with that as the movie progresses, and Nani sees some progression as well, especially with her profession and schooling. Most of the “bad guys” were not bad guys at all and befriended the main characters. It stayed true to the original enough while adding its own ideas, and it did not push hard on any sort of social messaging, which I am glad that they did.

It is the summer movie season, and there have been some pretty good movies out lately. Some are just mindless action movies while others are good family movies. It does feel like there has been a drought in even decent movies lately, so this is good that there are fun movies out right now.