Before she took Oscars away for Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby, one of Hillary Swank's first movie roles was in The Next Karate Kid. That just goes to show that actors needs to start at the bottom and work their way to the top and frankly it doesn't get much lower than this movie.

While I absolutely loved the first Karate Kid and enjoyed the second, the third and fourth iterations of the series just prove that the films should have been put to pasture after the first sequel. You can only run with a franchise for so long before you lose focus and start churning out product that only jades the original. The whole premise of The Next Karate Kid is absolutely laughable, but in all honesty after four movies and ten years there's very little distance that you can stretch the same plot.

In an effort to shake things up Swank finds herself playing the part of insufferable Bostonian tomboy Julie Pierce as she struggles with the death of her parents and overbearing grandmother. For the most part this film tries copying the original formula with the master training the student, but with the twist that we have a girl instead of Daniel-san. For the life of me I just couldn't like Swank in this role and it's not like Ralph Macchio was the best actor in his day, but Daniel is a much more palatable character than Julie.

Pat Morita fills the shoes of Mr. Miyagi yet again, but even he can't save this mess of a film. Over the years we have learned a lot about Miyagi and what makes him tick, but in this movie Morita almost seems bored and forced into the role. I still enjoyed the Miyagi snippets of wisdom and sense of humor, but his character seemed distant here and several of his interactions feel forced.

Miyagi finds his way to Boston for a WWII ceremony in which he is being honored and meets up with the wife of a former friend. This poor woman has found herself stuck taking care of Julie and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Almost without thinking, Miyagi sends grandma to his place out in California and offers to whip Julie into shape. This happens almost too easily and makes Miyagi look like Kung-Fu Nanny 911, but it's the only plot device they could come up with.

As Miyagi (and you) suffer through the joys of dealing with a pissy teenage girl you'll see several things that will make you wonder what kind of drugs the writer was on. We see Julie take care of a hawk that she keeps locked in a cage on top of her high school, go to visit some Japanese monks outside of Boston and get pushed around by an elite group of sadistic militant hall monitors.

While the other Karate Kid movies haven't exactly had the best or most believable bad guys, this group of black wearing egomaniacs takes the cake. They are led by Colonel Dugan (Michael Ironside) who treats the high school like it's a Marine Academy and is the real voice of power behind the principle. These students borderline rape and abuse their fellow classmates, but they are so "strong" that they run the school. Naturally Miyagi teaches Julie karate and eventually there is a decisive battle (if you want to call it that) between the good guys and bad.

Some events that lead to the climax of the film are about as crack-addict as the rest of the script writing and feature some remarkably bad ideas. From random bungee jumpers at a high school prom, to bowling monks and a stand off on the docks with exploding cars, The Next Karate Kid's story falls apart even before it begins.

Directed by Christopher Cain, this movie should not be associated with the rest of the series that was handled by John Avildsen. The story is absolutely horrible, the character interactions are rice paper thin and the acting is B movie grade. Unless you buy the box set that includes this release, avoid it at all costs.

The Next Karate Kid is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and features some very crisp visuals. Surprisingly though there were several areas that had some noise and dirt and there was even a little bit of noticeable edge enhancement in the transfer. Otherwise though the image is good considering the film is slightly over the ten year old mark, but it's not the best it could have been.

The Next Karate Kid has a wide variety of available language tracks and subtitles to choose from. You can listen to it in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese and watch subtitles with those languages as well as Korean, Thai and Chinese. The Dolby 2.0 features mostly front channel sound, but needless to say this isn't an auditory masterpiece by which you'd base your home theater on. The audio is good considering the material here in the film, but that's not saying too much.

Unlike some of the other Karate Kid eleases there are no "features" on to this disc and really would you want to see a making of featurette for this film? Yeah, me neither. There are trailers for Karate Kid, Karate Kid II, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, Beverly Hills Ninja and Godzilla 2,000. There is also a list with filmography credits for Morita and Swank, but I don't really consider that a special feature.

It truly goes without saying that this fourth and final film in the Karate Kid franchise was the nail in the coffin. While it's an interesting take on a new student for Mr. Miyagi, the entire movie is asinine from start to finish and made me say, "WTF!" on more than one occasion.

Maybe it was the point when I first say the lame-ass Alpha Elite high school bullies, maybe it was when Miyagi randomly decides to drop everything and teach Julie karate or maybe it was the bungee jumping prom fiasco, but nothing in this film made sense. I found myself questioning every little thing that happened in this movie and one has to wonder if Miyagi called Daniel to say, "Hey, Daniel-san, have old lady come stay with you for while. I train irritating teenage girl."

The video has a pretty dirty transfer but otherwise the image is crisp and the audio gets a passable grade, just no stellar treatment. No matter how you sum it up, The Next Karate Kid is the worst installment in the franchise and all together a very bad movie. Skip It.

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