Karate Kid: Legends is a fun and chemistry-driven—if ultimately unfulfilling—cinematic continuation of The Karate Kid franchise post-Cobra Kai, and a lighthearted integration of Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han into the main timeline. Li Fong (Ben Wang), one of Mr. Han’s Beijing-based Kung Fu students and great nephew, moves to New York City because Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen), his mother, takes up a job in an NYC hospital. Promising to give up violence before moving, Li’s time initially starts like any other (including his later sensei, but decades earlier in different settings); he goes to classes, feels isolated, and meets a girl, Mia Lipani (Sadie Stanley), whose father Victor (Joshua Jackson) owns and runs a local pizza joint. However, upon starting a romantic venture with Mia, her ex-boyfriend Conor Day (Aramis Knight)—a star student in the local ego-driven Demolition dojo reminiscent of John Kreese’s baby Cobra Kai in earlier films and Netflix’s same-named TV show—aggresses Li on multiple fronts.

Shortly after, Li finds Victor getting attacked by loan sharks because he owes his creditor and Demolition dojo owner, O’Shea (Tim Rozon), money he got loaned to open the pizzeria, and saves him with Kung Fu. Revealing Victor was a former boxer and wishes to stand up to O’Shea in the ring again, Li agrees to train him, and things get more complicated. Before long, Li finds himself wrapped up in the Five Boroughs Tournament against Conor and many others to save himself, his relationship, and Victor and Mia’s livelihoods. Mr. Han comes to America, and worlds collide—original The Karate Kid trilogy and Cobra Kai star Sensei Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), initially reluctant, agrees to train Li and rekindle lost relations between Mr. Han’s Kung Fu and Miyagi-Do Karate. With two karate legends behind him, Li must do what it takes to become the Karate Kid that Legends will be told of.

If any of the above sounds overly feel-good, rest (un)assured, it’s on par. Legends is equal parts kick-ass and undisciplined. It primarily works due to its tonally hopeful consistency and convincing performances. The merging of Jackie Chan’s 2010 venture with the main Karate Kid timeline certainly provides budding chemistry between him and Macchio. Watching the original karate kid all grown up, reintroduced to the world of karate post-Cobra Kai‘s satisfactory six seasons through an equally cheery introduction of Mr. Han’s presence, makes for heartwarming, hilarious, and almost natural fun. Chan’s undying optimism, which disguises his disciplined, violent side seen in his first film, bounces off Macchio’s witty, nearly self-deprecating approach to his New Jersey-kid-in-his-50s character quite well. It’s like watching two standup comics who also know how to fight and show up for each other.

Most of Legends‘ characters are also similarly memorably enlivened. While the writing is sloppy (more there later), the cast is not to blame. Victor is an enticing gruff-and-tumble catalyst for the rest of Li’s America-based issues, and Mia is an endearingly funny love interest. Conor is a bit of a thinner Johnny Lawrence, but again, in no fault to Aramis Knight. Ben Wang as Li himself, as Victor at one point literally says, is like “the Chinese Peter Parker.” Sony’s bogus Spider-Man references aside, Li is bubbly when he wants to be, serious when he needs to be, and situationally more aroused than anyone around him. Wang ensures he sells the kid’s naivety with ease; his baby face helps, but knowing when a kid does a childish thing versus when they’re in the right and making a mature decision or undertaking a mature action is rare, and Li gets it. His eyes dance as he linguistically charms his way to cheaper prices in Mandarin, but his body tenses, eyebrows raise, and eyelids narrow whenever danger arrives. Li’s inexperienced preparedness is born from Wang’s unwavering earnestness and subtle bodily control, which is evident in every scene.

While fights are also tightly choreographed and sights and sounds are equally satisfactory, Legends fails to deliver anything new or weighty. Legends is simply a generically scripted rehash of The Karate Kid, but with more characters from past movies and much less genuine intrigue. For example, the premiere scene between Li, Mia and Conor is meant to drum up tension: Conor, lurking on a sidewalk with his brutish thugs in all black and a similarly blackened man-bun, threatens the pair and insults Mia’s father’s judgement, only for Mia herself to respond saying “guess I’m just a chip off the ol’ block then!” behind a stressed smile disguising her disgust towards Conor. Simply put, it’s cliche, and that’s how the movie is formulated in plot, dialogue and character development: blandly and predictably. The initial set up feels so cookie cuttered from a local filmmaking textbook and this franchise’s ‘84 original, leaving so little excitement or variation that the rest of Legends’ runtime becomes an exercise in monotony. Of course Li will train, develop, and gain everyone’s respect by showing mercy like LaRusso has done countless times; of course he still gets his girl, his mom’s approval, and the help of two conveniently available karate legends to face his fears; of course the fights, though tightly produced, bear no burdens on viewers so long as viewers can in fact predict everything else (which they should with ease). Other than Li being from Beijing and Karate Kid timelines once separate getting merged, Legends isn’t anything out of the ordinary. It’s just basic, soul-heating entertainment rehashing the same themes a franchise with now six movies and six TV seasons should’ve long gotten past.

Overall, Karate Kid: Legends is fun, but quite disappointing in how uncreative and safe it kicks. Instead of delivering a film built on decades of filmmaking and years of TV storytelling, director Jonathan Entwistle and co. rehash this franchise’s original storybeats with the original kid, a now-canon Mr. Han and his great nephew on a two-dimensional scale. For hardcore Karate Kid and action fans, Legends is surely a fun ride, but fans and the cast deserve better than this lazily crafted, upbeat retread.

In theaters everywhere now