The Karate Kid Part III

The unevenness of The Karate Kid movies reaches its peak in The Karate Kid Part III, as the film suffers from the various problems that plagued its predecessors (eg overlength, padded-out sequences, etc) to such an extent that there’s ultimately very little here that genuinely works. The storyline follows Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) as he’s essentially forced into defending his title from the first movie’s pivotal tournament, as his nemesis from that film, Martin Kove’s John Kreese, has embarked on a campaign of revenge that’s designed to leave both Daniel and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) publicly humiliated. The relatively promising nature of the movie’s vengeance-themed plot is effectively squandered by director John G. Avildsen and screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, with the unreasonably deliberate pace compounded by an ongoing emphasis on attributes of a decidedly less-than-subtle nature. The most obvious example of this is surely Thomas Ian Griffith’s hilariously over-the-top turn as Kreese’s enthusiastic henchman, as the actor transforms his character into a moustache-twirling villain who says things like, “I’ll make them suffer; when I think they’ve suffered enough, then I start with the pain!” The underwhelming atmosphere is compounded by the consistent inclusion of overlong and downright irrelevant sequences (eg a 10 minute interlude in which Daniel and a friend attempt to retrieve a precariously-placed bonsai tree), which cements The Karate Kid Part III‘s place as a sporadically watchable yet wholeheartedly needless endeavor (with the touching friendship between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi standing as the film’s one overtly positive element).

** out of ****