Jack Ziebell, Ben Warren and Sam Wright are self-confessed movie buffs.

Talented on the football field, the trio also considers itself quite savvy with the latest offerings from Hollywood - so much so, kangaroos.com.au has asked for some insight.

For the next few months, Jack, Ben and Sam will be giving you their take on the latest blockbusters to hit the silver screen and they will also dive deep into their own movie collections for in depth reviews and recommendations.

This week, Sam Wright headed to Village Cinemas to watch The Karate Kid.
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Let me just say The Karate Kid is good and every little kid will want to be just like Jaden Smith after seeing this movie.

I enjoyed this movie and thought it stacked up pretty well against the original Karate Kid movies, but it wasn’t as good.

Smith must have done a heap of training for the role and was pretty impressive with his martial arts abilities, however I think he learnt more from his dad Will Smith on how to get the ladies in the lead up to shooting.

There’s a bit of romance in the movie between Smith junior and a young Asian girl and the whole situation made me laugh a fair bit. Smith was so smooth and had all the moves even though he is only about 12 years-old. He will be unstoppable when he is older and actually knows what he is talking about!

Anyway, I loved Jackie Chan in this movie and he plays the Mr. Miyagi martial arts teacher role made famous by that other bloke with the grey goatee. In the original movies you would remember the ‘wax on, wax off’ training technique that Daniel-son uses to learn Karate..well Chan takes it to a whole new level with Smith’s jacket. Without spoiling the scene and giving away any ancient secrets, Chan gets Jaden to take his jacket off, drop it on the ground, pick it up, put it on the hook, take it off the hook, wear it again, take it off and repeat the whole deal over and over. Then bang, you have a mini-Bruce Lee in the making. I really liked the concepts they thought of and all the different ways to teach Smith how to fight without him actually knowing that he was being taught - brilliant.

I reckon this film has saved Chan’s acting career. Some of his most recent movies have been crappy and are just bad comedies…He was great in the first Rush Hour but no good in anything after and started to struggle, until now. He plays a pretty serious role, but still has some cheeky humour which is what he does best. I never thought he was an all-out comedian.

Although one complaint I have is that you don’t see him fight enough and show his awesome skills. There is one scene where he pulls his finger out a bit and takes on about 12 kids who are trying to beat up Smith kid. He humiliates them without even hurting them - I would have thrown a few if I was him.

The one main message that I want to get across to you is that when I saw the original Karate Kid movies, my jaw dropped during those climactic final scenes. I remember leaving the cinema thinking ‘man that was awesome’…I wanted to be the next Karate Kid and actually go and learn karate.

Sadly, those scenes are missing from this latest Karate Kid flick and the pay off from sitting down and watching this very long film isn’t quite as good.

You might be surprised to hear it, but I reckon it is pitched at a slightly older audience and I think they could have shortened it up and included more action.

In saying that, you should get out and see it….I’m a bit of a harsh critic but this is a movie for everyone, young and old.

3 out of 5
Sam Wright