The Karate Kid: Critic Reviews

The Karate Kid exhibits warmth and friendly, predictable humor, its greatest assets.

An exciting, sweet-tempered, heart-warming story with one of the most interesting friendships in a long time.

It's primitive, predatory stuff.

Morita is simply terrific, bringing the appropriate authority and wisdom to the part.

This film's art consists entirely of hiding the cynicism of its calculations under an agreeably modest and disarming manner.

Predictable yet satisfying...

Avildsen crafted an inspired movie with the perfect mix of 80's bravado and 70's artistic integrity.

Irresistible wish fulfillment.

The Karate Kid brought something fresh to the table and proved exceptionally skilled at reaching its adolescent audience. [Blu-ray]

Perhaps a touch on the corny side and undeniably broad, Kid is a ridiculously rewarding drama that puts pure sincerity to marvelous use, inflating a mild underdog story into an inspiring tale of education and developing friendship.

'80s classic is still fun for families with older tweens.

This is the kind of movie where you find yourself cheering even though you know you're being hoodwinked.

A surprise summer hit in the States, this is another film-making-by-numbers exercise in teenage wish-fulfilment.

Morita's work in The Karate Kid is iconographic.

While this may be as soppy and predictable as they come, it still reminds you why you used to enjoy '80s teen flicks so much in the first place.

Formulaic, manipulative, hokey — and thoroughly rousing… the film's sincerity and poignance have a way of steamrolling over gaps in plausibility and logic.

A teenage Rocky for the 1980s.

All hail the Crane Kick, liberator of self-doubting wimps over bullies, redeemer of lost causes, winner of Elisabeth Shue's heart.

A great underdog story, and you gotta love the flying crane.