Cobra Kai is trite, predictable, unrealistic, very poorly written and generally poorly acted. With the exception of Peyton List, the young actors portraying karate students are particularly bad, although the dialogue they are given doesn't help. The good guys are written as true blue and the bad guys as pure evil. They range from too happy to too angry to too cooperative to too uncooperative.
But there's something to be said for the show. It's a nostalgic homage to the iconic "Karate Kid" movies with numerous references and flashback footage, Actors from those movies are brought back portraying older versions of the characters they originally played. Ralph Macchio is still the wholesome, karate addicted Daniel LaRusso but William Zabka.(the antagonist who Daniel defeats at the end of the original Karate Kid movie) steals the show as the middle-aged version of a now very humbled Johnny Lawrence. While LaRusso is now a successful auto dealership owner, Johnny is always just trying to make ends meet while regretting decisions he made in the long ago "Karate Kid" world. And while the plots and dialogue are often unbelievable, it's still fun to watch the dynamic between these 2 old rivals as events in the present result in scenes of alternating friendship and resentment.
The most clever things in the scripts are the occasional tongue in cheek references relevant to the actors. For instance, when Macchio's LaRusso offers to get a lawyer for someone, he is told not to get "one of his sleazy cousins." An obvious reference to Joe Pesci's role as Macchio's cousin-lawyer in "My Cousin Vinny."
It's fun watching actors who were once so young now portraying those same characters in middle age. If you can get past the weak plots and often poor acting, Cobra Kai can be fun.
But there's something to be said for the show. It's a nostalgic homage to the iconic "Karate Kid" movies with numerous references and flashback footage, Actors from those movies are brought back portraying older versions of the characters they originally played. Ralph Macchio is still the wholesome, karate addicted Daniel LaRusso but William Zabka.(the antagonist who Daniel defeats at the end of the original Karate Kid movie) steals the show as the middle-aged version of a now very humbled Johnny Lawrence. While LaRusso is now a successful auto dealership owner, Johnny is always just trying to make ends meet while regretting decisions he made in the long ago "Karate Kid" world. And while the plots and dialogue are often unbelievable, it's still fun to watch the dynamic between these 2 old rivals as events in the present result in scenes of alternating friendship and resentment.
The most clever things in the scripts are the occasional tongue in cheek references relevant to the actors. For instance, when Macchio's LaRusso offers to get a lawyer for someone, he is told not to get "one of his sleazy cousins." An obvious reference to Joe Pesci's role as Macchio's cousin-lawyer in "My Cousin Vinny."
It's fun watching actors who were once so young now portraying those same characters in middle age. If you can get past the weak plots and often poor acting, Cobra Kai can be fun.