Watching One Of This Tonight

The Karate Kid

Fatherless Daniel moves to Los Angeles, where he struggles to make new friends. Along the way, he becomes the target of the Cobras, a gang of karate students. Wanting to stand up to them, he asks the Japanese Mr. Miyagi—whom he knows to be a martial arts master—to teach him karate. Miyagi shows Daniel that karate is more than just a martial art: it’s a philosophy and a way of life, and that physical confrontation is the very last resort to a problem.

Who hasn’t seen it at least once? I believe no one—but just in case, let’s do a little review…

It’s a good family movie, with a nice story and well-shaped characters. Simple, yes, but it manages to move you and capture the audience’s interest, and it’s still just as enjoyable to watch even today.

Naturally, Miyagi steals the show—both with his presence and with the lessons he tries to impart to his student through karate. He was even nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (a bit excessive, in my opinion). As for Ralph Macchio, I wouldn’t say his performance is anything remarkable—without calling him talentless, so you won’t think I’m exaggerating.

Of course, it spawned many sequels, as expected, but none of them matched the emotion and success of the original film

Suicide Squad

A government agent, wanting to assemble a powerful team that won’t say no even to the most dangerous missions, frees notorious prisoners who will offer their services in exchange for the possibility of freedom.

Very promising—the marketing was truly amazing and clever, it smashed at the box office—but as a quality result, for me at least, it was below average.

One of the film’s positives is the performances of very well-known actors who try to do the best they can with the material given, the chemistry between some of them, and I also liked David Ayer’s attempt to give feelings and a human dimension to this team of villains. He makes excellent use of the introduction, not rushing headlong into the main story, instead giving his characters time to introduce themselves to us.

From that point on, chaos—without me understanding why the result turned out so mediocre. The script falls apart and makes no sense, it lacks imagination and creativity (even though it tries at moments), the action is practically non-existent, as is the villain, who feels weak, and this shows in the film’s climax. The Joker–Harley Quinn relationship is portrayed in a strange way, while overall the Joker’s role seems to have no real reason to exist in the film, more like a tease for future sequels. The film’s editing is also odd. It doesn’t have cohesion as a movie; it feels like random scenes were “glued” together and then labeled as a comic-book film, with the whole result feeling forced.

It’s not that you’ll be bored—you’ll have a pleasant two hours—but compared to the bar that comic-book films have now set compared to earlier times, Suicide Squad is a mediocre result.