The Karate Kid

Ok! I know when I can hold my hand up and say I was wrong.I've been dreading going to watch this remake, if your an 80's kid like me the Karate kid means one main thing. Mr Miagi.

The entire story gets changed as none of the original characters were necessary. This classes it as a re-imagining instead of remake, which is my excuse for accepting this film for the general kickassery within.

Our hero is 12 year old Dre (Jaden Smith) who has to move to China with his mom. He is not at all happy about this change in lifestyle and lashes out in a general teenage sulky way. The story is set up pretty quickly with the new guy falls in love with girl, girl is part of ethnic majority, certain members of said majority take offence, beat him up and then challenge him to a karate tournament. Couldn't be simpler, oh wait that's right. He doesn't know karate. Enter Mr Han (Jackie Chan).

If your a massive Will Smith fan like myself you'll thoroughly enjoy Jaden's performance. While I'm sure he has a future in film making that will vary to his fathers roles, you can kinda feel the same attitude in some of his lines. Some of the looks he has on his face look very familiar. He is an instantly likeable hero and you root for him straight away. Jackie Chan has grown from strength to strength in hollywood and it's great to have him in a mentoring role. He brings the silent wisdom that Pat Morita did and takes it to a darker level. Be on the look out for a nod to a scene in the original karate kid involving chopsticks and a fly.

The best part for me has got to be the choreography. Just because our story revolves around young teenagers does not mean that the fighting doesn't have a really good dose of ouch. These kids pull off moves that Tekken characters would have trouble with.

All in all, I'll be watching this film a good couple more times and I can definitely smell a sequel.

Clash of the Titans

I'm completely sick and tired of remake after remake of original classics by movie makers obsessed with proving how better they can do it (of course you can, technology is great) instead of thinking of new ideas. This attitude lead me to avoid watching Clash of the Titans until it's dvd release. I was happily surprised when from scene to scene I became more engaged in this mythical and beautifully imagined world.

While it sells itself completely on it's cinematography extremely well, the story line includes all the coolest greek mythology characters like Medusa, Pegasus and the Kraken. All the gods are accounted for and Ralph Fiennes' Hades is my favourite character. Just perfectly insidous and you gotta love a good bad guy.

I think the last greek mythology movie to be this fun was Disney's Hercules. It's one of those movies that pretty much does what it says on the box. Designed to sit back and enjoy on a sunday afternoon with the popcorn flowing a plenty. Don't expect it to get intriguing as the predictability is on max factor 10 to the power of infinity.

I'm not completely sold on Sam Worthington just yet. He's in loads of stuff at the moment, but I'll hang on until he plays a more complex character.