One could be forgiven for thinking this was a poor man's ' The Karate Kid' clone, or even knock-off, and you wouldn't be too far off. I mean, this isn't exactly the same obviously, but it comes close, the similarities are there.
This is a weird one truth be told. Essentially, what you have is a plot revolving around the standard troubles any young boy has when growing up. At school he has strict teachers, bullies, girl issues, and he can't concentrate in class. He also suffers from asthma which doesn't really cause as much trouble, plot-wise, as you think it would. Anyway, the root of his lack of concentration skills is a fixation with action star Chuck Norris. Like most of us growing up, we all had our movie star heroes, and we all had fantasies about being action stars with our heroes.
Thing is, this is pretty much the entire basis of the movie. Barry (Johnathan Brandis) worships Chuck Norris and constantly daydreams about being in action scenarios with him, where the bad guys are either teachers or bullies. I mean, we've all been there, we've had these types of fantasies when at school I'm sure. The idea is interesting, and I think a good movie idea is in here, deep down, but this ain't it.
So most of the movie is Barry daydreaming at awkward moments, about himself and Norris, which then leads to him waking up in an even more awkward situation. His teachers worry about him, his dad worries about him, his friend worries about him, you get the idea. At one point he tries to join a local martial arts dojo, which coincidentally is also where his school bully trains (Cobra Kai much?), but discovers the master, Kelly Stone (Joe Piscopo), to be a narcissistic wacko who mocks him instead (a play on John Kreese?). This leads to Barry having daydreams where Stone is always the arch-nemesis of himself and Norris.
Midway through, Barry is given the chance to be trained by a wise old martial arts master called Mr. Lee (a relation of Barry's teacher who also, awkwardly, happens to be seeing his dad), totally not in the same vein as Mr. Miyagi. From there on we get lots and lots of training montages accompanied by typical late 80's, early 90's music, with Barry learning the ropes and slowly getting better. Then, for no real reason whatsoever, Lee enters Barry in a local martial arts competition, which just so happens to also include the local dojo run by master Stone. Unfortunately, the rules state you need four people in a team; luckily, Chuck Norris is there to join Barry's team, because of course he is.
The last part of the movie revolves around this martial arts competition that does actually look like the production team shot during a real event, or got a lot of extras. So Stone gets to fight his real-life nemesis, Chuck Norris, and Barry must face off against his school bully in the big finale. Yeah, so definite 'Karate Kid' vibes from start to finish here. They were definitely trying to ride the coattails of that franchise. Heck, Stone's dojo even fights in black, just like Cobra Kai.
So, we can see what director Aaron Norris (Chuck's younger brother) was going for here, but he took a more lighthearted comedic route. There are scenes here that are taken in a more genuine light, and really want to be just like Daniel LaRusso's story. On the other hand, there are moments in this movie that are ridiculously stupid and goofy, most of which include Piscopo's character. The other weird angle here are the dream sequences that actually replay actual moments from Norris' real movies. The odd angle being, Chuck Norris's movies are totally adult fare, and yet here, in a kids' movie, they recreate some of the adult action sequences (very well I might add), minus the killing. That's like Arnie redoing famous action moments from say 'Predator', in a kids flick, but toned down with no actual killing. It's just a weird, meta, thing to do.
So without sounding like a broken record, yes, this movie does seem to be an attempt at making a more light-hearted version of 'The Karate Kid'. The comparisons are unavoidable. Alas, this offering really is a strange combination of a few ideas, of which none really shine. All in all its a very cliched, generic, and formulaic plot, with some heavily watered-down Chuck Norris action thrown in.
4/10
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