Delayed Reaction: The Karate Kid Part III

What I Guessed It Was About: I'm going to defer to the Mighty Ducks model. The first movie went local. The second went international. This will take a step back. Daniel goes to college, gets a new sensei, and has to beat the other kids at his new dojo.

How I Came Into It: The drop in quality from the first to second movie is pretty steep. They rebooted this with Hilary Swank after this one. That's not encouraging.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Pat Morita is still in it with his understated handling of the Miyagi character. Something I didn't realize until I checked out IMDB is that the series kept the writer and director for all three movies which explains the tonal and visual consistency.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: This is a comedy, right? It's satirizing the previous movies, right? Please tell me that's the case...
This is insanely escalated. A billionaire happens to be a Cobra Kai student, who holds meetings while he takes a bubble bath and sets his life aside for several weeks so he can humble a kid in a local karate tournament. There's an action set piece where the emotional stakes are tied to a bonsai tree. Daniel is a 28 year old college dropout running a tree store in a bad part of town. I'm embarrassed that I watched this.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend