Karate Kid: Legends And Mission: Impossible 8 Share The Same Annoying Problem

This article contains spoilers for "Karate Kid: Legends" and "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning."

In some ways, film is an escape that presents audiences with an opportunity to leave their world behind and find themselves engrossed in another one. It's an immersive experience, after all. Every film rides on its own wavelength. Viewers who are more cinematically attuned may rejoice at being able to recognize a filmmaker working their magic, but on the other side of the coin, noticing the seams coming apart can be detrimental to the whole experience. When the pacing is off, it makes you think about the movie beyond what it's there to do.

A film with great pacing can often hide flaws or extend your suspension of disbelief because the experience, as a whole, doesn't grant you the opportunity to think about them all that much in the moment. Each scene informs the next. Some of the best edited films feel seamless in their presentation. It's not something you're really supposed to notice on a first viewing, which makes it all the more frustrating when you can practically see the editor struggling to make something coherent out of the footage that's up on the screen.

"Karate Kid: Legends" and "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" are both late entries in their respective decades-spanning franchises that couldn't be more different from one another, yet they happen to share a similar dilemma regarding pacing.

"Legends" and "The Final Reckoning" are coming from two different places, with the former being a big screen reintroduction to the "Karate Kid" franchise and the latter being a farewell to "Mission: Impossible." Both films, however, seem to have a difficult time presenting a narrative at an economical pace.

Part of what made Christopher McQuarrie a great fit for the last few "Mission: Impossible" movies is his ability to make exposition scenes feel alive and visually involving without halting the film's rhythm. "Rogue Nation" and "Dead Reckoning" are especially great examples of this. When it comes to "The Final Reckoning," however, the film immediately inundates the viewer with half-hearted callbacks and information overload to the point of exhaustion. We're barreling through a considerable amount of underdeveloped scenes that could be emotionally riveting if given the room to breathe.

It makes it all too easy for casual viewers to witness the film struggling to find a middle ground in which the information compliments the action. The emotional logic of it all has to make some sort of sense, yet both this and "Legends" suffer as a result. The central difference between the two, however, is that "The Final Reckoning" eventually finds its footing and locks into place in the back half once Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) actually sets out on his missions. The Sevastopol and bi-plane sequences, especially, are considerably better paced out, allowing the viewer to become engaged in the spectacle of watching Cruise get tossed around like a rag doll in the moment.

"Legends" possesses different goals in having to be a legacy sequel to both the 1984 and 2010 "Karate Kid" movies, in addition to being welcoming to newcomers who may not have seen the six seasons of "Cobra Kai." But its issues weirdly fall into a category beyond franchise reverence. I thought it was pretty amusing that "Legends" was tasked with bridging the generational gap between movies and propelling a new protagonists' journey in a film that barely clocks in at 90 minutes.

In some respects, "Legends" feels like a reprieve from the bloated runtimes of the average blockbuster. You could watch it twice in the time that it takes to watch "The Final Reckoning." The "Karate Kid" revival moves at a breakneck pace, but in doing so, leaves the film's potential in the wind.

Cinematic newcomer Ben Wang, who you may have previously seen in the short-lived Disney+ series "American Born Chinese," actually exudes a charismatic screen presence as Li Fong that somehow manages to shine through the film's many shortcomings. He's immediately likable. As with the other protagonists in the "Karate Kid" franchise, Li is the new kid, having moved to New York with his single mother (Ming-Na Wen in a thankless role). In an interesting subversion, however, he's already proficient at kung fu having been taught by his teacher Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) back in Beijing. Li ends up being the one to train Victor (Joshua Jackson), the boxer turned owner of a struggling New York pizza joint who's fallen into debt with some MMA loan sharks. There's a good film in here about building that story out, but "Legends" couldn't be more in a hurry to get back to status quo.

One of the greatest lessons in the "Karate Kid" franchise is that of learning patience. "First learn stand, then learn fly" is an important lesson from the great Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), but "Legends" is always in such a rush and not in a way that compliments Li's story. Scenes end just as quickly they begin, allowing virtually no room to build an emotional tether to its characters. For example, Li loves kung fu, but we learn in a flashback sequence that his brother was murdered after an altercation with a sore loser. The emotional dilemma is resolved almost as quickly as it's introduced with the imminent arrival of Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). There's barely a half hour left to go in the film and Li's introspective character growth suffers as a result. /Film's Witney Seibold was more positive on "Legends" in his review, but even he couldn't help but notice the sharp jump from one short-changed movie to another.

It gets long-winded, but at least "The Final Reckoning" allows its characters to sit down and talk about things, while "Legends" often whips into the next scene before people can finish their sentences. All of the beats are there, but there's no soul to any of it, which feels like a huge misstep from this series in particular. "The Next Karate Kid" is unjustly lambasted as the worst entry, yet Hilary Swank's Julie Pierce at least comes out on the other side as a fully realized character. Even the $50,000 prize attached to the 5 Boroughs competition comes across as an afterthought that's never really addressed, rather than the driving force for Li to win the competition and save Victor's pizza parlor. It is and he does, but you would never know that from watching "Legends."

I'm not delusional to the point of expecting a "Karate Kid" movie to be some bastion of high art, but the series has done a great job of presenting conflict for these protagonists to overcome after taking the time to learn patience. "Legends" can't help but present itself as a poorly edited film catered for TikTok attention spans that feels like someone watching a movie at a higher speed rate.

"Karate Kid: Legends" and "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" are now playing in theaters nationwide.