Last Friday, I watched and thoroughly enjoyed the remake of The Karate Kid. For all its flaws (starting with the embarrassingly inappropriate title as it was set in China and the kid in question learned Wushu, not Karate), it was very engaging, with some beautiful scenery, great, albeit bone-crunching action, and a surprisingly moving, tender friendship between leads Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith as teacher Han and student Dre, respectively.
I totally get the vitriol that the fan community has spewed regarding this movie; Hollywood's addiction to remakes and sequels is truly irritating, and had I not enjoyed this movie I would be joining the bandwagon against this and other remakes.
What has honestly taken me by surprise is how many people wish so much ill on its star, Smith, who's basically just eleven years old. Granted, people feel that as the son of Hollywood megastar Will Smith, he's getting breaks that other kids might not necessarily get, and granted that both his parents are the driving force behind this remake, but here's the thing: I'm not sure he deserves all the hate.
Well, he may not be a great actor, but he certainly isn't a bad one, at least not in my opinion, or the opinion of the majority of the critics polled on rottentomatoes.com and metacritic.com, or the opinion of a whole lot of people who went to the movies last weekend who spent something like $60 million dollars worth of their money to see this film. In fact, he carries the film, all two and a nearly-a-half hours of it, on his shoulders which is no mean feat for any actor, let alone someone who has yet to hit puberty. The feat becomes doubly impressive when one considers that this isn't a kid who's surrounded by an orgy of CGI or who is doubling with his twin to help the producers dodge child labor laws. In short, whatever break his parents have given him, Smith has made the most out of it by acting his little heart out, and by busting his ass to learn some serious Kung Fu chops.
There are a lot of famous people out there who benefited more than just a little from their parents' celebrity. Folks like Angelina Jolie, Angelica Huston, Nicolas Cage and Jason Reitman to name the few that come to mind all managed to get a leg up on the industry that they may or may not have gotten had they not been related to revered filmmakers or performers. Sure, Cage may have adopted the name of a comic book character to hide his true surname Coppola and thereby dispel any doubts that he made it in Hollywood based on merit, but there's no denying it helped him. What was important about all of these people was that they took the ball that was handed to them and ran with it. One has them on the one hand and folks like eternal-supporting-actor Colin Hanks and Sofia Coppola on the other, the latter of whom stumbled when given the opportunity to act in The Godfather Part III, though she eventually found her calling behind the camera. I'm fairly certain that on the acting front, Smith is no Sofia Coppola.
"Nepotism" isn't particularly new, even in Hollywood, but at least this kid is using the opportunity to its fullest. And besides, this film only cost about $40 million, which by today's standards is a song, and it's not as though they're tapping him to be the next Spider-Man or anchor some billion-dollar franchise. And ultimately, it's not as if they didn't make him work his ass off to be able to do the things he does in this film. Unlike Jack Black, who probably ate a box of Twinkies or something between recording sessions of Kung Fu Panda, judging by his current appearance, it's plain to see how hard Smith worked to pick up the skills necessary for this role; it's written all over his wiry little frame.
Count me, therefore, as one of those throwing their support behind Smith as a star of tomorrow. Fanboys can stew in as much hatred and concoct as many Scientology/Nepotism theories as they want, and if the rest of the world is lucky The Karate Kid will make over $200 million at the US box-office and cause those same fanboys' heads to explode from trying to figure out how Will Smith and Jada Pinkett managed to hypnotize that many people into watching their son's movie.
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