OK, let's make like magicians and vanish this elephant first. This movie is not about Karate. The martial arts in the movie are all chinese wushu.
A lot of self appointed martial arts experts have pointed that out all over the place.
I can get past that, and here's why: My karate Sensei, Teruo Chinen, was very concious of the connection between his Goju-Ryo karate and white crane style kung-fu. (plus, his nickname for me was "Kung Fu Panda.") Since Sensei Chinen's first teacher was the real Mister Miyagi, Chojun Miyagi, I will accept that wushu is a suitable replacement.
I was pretty ticked off when I found out that they were changing the names of the main characters from Daniel and Mr. Miyagi to Dre and Mr. Han.
Mr. Han? Seriously? Like, from Enter the Dragon? "Mr. Han, suddenly I'd like to leave yo' island!"
No Mr. Miyagi seemed pretty unforgiveable to me.
Still, I am a fan of Jackie Chan's earlier work, so I decided a buck from the Redbox was worth the gamble.
I was pleasantly surprised.
The movie gives what I think is a fairly accurate depiction of Chinese culture and the wushu scene there.
Will Smith's kid wasn't the best actor in the world, but he got the job done.
Jackie Chan was amazing. I'm actually talking about his acting, his fighting seems to have slowed down with age.
The scene in the car... well, I won't give it away, but JC was really good.
On the whole, JC's acting was much more subtle than the schtick he usually does.
The action wasn't the best ever, but it was decent.
I was also surprised by the way they handled the nods to the original. I expected them to be cheesy, but they actually pulled them off rather well.
They managed to keep a lot of the iconic quotes and images, but still do it in a refreshing way.
The main bully was wonderfully horrible. Just made you want to take him over your knee.
I would have liked to see more of the evil Sifu. Really wanted him and Chan to fight. Maybe next time.

Overall, I'd say the flick is worth a shot and I hope they make part two so I can see Jackie Chan fight the evil Sifu.

Indeed, I heard it was good, look forward to getting a free night to watch it. That and the Donnie Yen movie Ip Man.

Evidently, China is the new Receda.

You nailed it, it wasn't great, but "better than expected", certainly than expected by me. One or two nice touches, some attention paid to what was happening in the background too, a decent effort

It was certainly better than "The next Karate Kid" where a pre-oscar Hillary Swank ran around in a cut off sweat shirt and really did little else.

I am just going to say that those who want to try to be the smartest guy in the room and point out Karate vs Wusu and what not miss the point.

I was entertained by the movie, far more than I suspected I would be. I did not go for a lesson in Karate history.

Exactly. I felt with all the people on the MA chatrooms trying to be smart by going on about how the movie 'sucks' for purely semantic reasons, I would give their position a quick nod so we wouldn't have to hear it should one of them show up here. Pedantic posturing irritates me. Although, anyone who uses the word "pedantic" probably are one. Dang it.

As long as he does that crane kick I'll watch it.

I can see your point, but I also see the other side of this one. Members of a subculture have a very understandable cringe factor when that subculture is misrepresented, often badly, in making a movie.

As a chess player, I want to throw up pretty much every time I see chess on TV or a movie, and you'll have two guys who are supposed to be top grandmasters, and they'll stare intently at a position, and then one of them will play a one-move checkmate, and the other will be surprised. It's just too stupid to even be funny.

I have to admit that this bothered me as well about chess for years. But I see it as different really. Here is why.

The charector in the movie offers to teach him "real gung fu" I believe. (Not sure that is the exact phrasing, don't hold me to it.) The semantics is simply in the title, which is more of a nod to the cultural effect the first movie had on pop culture. Also so people would get the idea of the story line, and see Jackie Chan act it out in the roll of teacher. I am not sure they ever said "Karate" in the movie or not I don't remember.

I have stopped looking to movies for any sort of accuracy. FAR too often the directors "vision" takes precedent over any form of historical accuracy. For years I had trouble with the concept of the "western shoot out". Look for them in historical accounts. I think you may find 3.

The think I found is that Will Smith has a very talented son. He carried much of that movie.

Not to mention the fact that virtually no kid from the USA has ever moved to China in the circumstances that he did, low grade housing, local schools etc. Once I overlooked that, the film was watchable - but not a patch on the original movie.

That is a very wise viewpoint to take. You're right about the "wild west" depictions in the movies. Much less honorable in the real deal. Western town violence was probably a bit more like urban gang fighting. Brutal, sneaky, and icky.
Likewise, there hasn't ever been a decent depiction of the game of Blackjack in a film. The movie "21" was wrong all over the place, but I enjoyed it.
I've come to feel the same way about the martial arts movies.
For martial arts movies the "Once Upon a Time in China" series, and "Drunken Master" are all about the same real life guy, they are all completely inaccurate from a historical perspective, but they are all wildly entertaining. I love all of those movies. As you say, I'm not after a history lesson when I watch them, I just want to be entertained.