The Karate Kid, Part III is by far the weakest entry in the original Karate Kid Trilogy. My biggest peeve with the 3rd installment is with the incessant whining by Daniel for pretty much the entire length of the movie. He is so whiny that he literally gives me a headache. There really is only one aspect about his character that was remotely interesting in this one and that's when he goes over to the 'dark side' and is trained by Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) and begins to learn illegal moves that could push the odds in his favor in winning the All-Valley Tournament against his new arch rival Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan). Sure, this is all an elaborate ruse to avenge the humilation of John Kreese (Martin Kove) from the first film, more specifically the opening scene of The Karate Kid, Part II. It's interesting, but it relies too much on recycling the same plot to really go anywhere new with the story.

I do like both the Silver and Barnes characters, but overall, the story, especially the subplot involving Jessica proves to be worthless. The fight at the end, especially that of Barnes monologue was good. Not that it would have improve the movie, but it would have been a bit more watchable if Kreese was in this one more instead of what is basically is a cameo. Only rent this if you intend to have a Karate Kid marathon. Otherwise this is a Skip.

Bringing back the villain from the first film ranks up there with time travel or the "Wonderful Life" twist that just screams "weak sauce" to me.

The third being a prequel.  Another thing I dislike.

I suppose the natural thing for the third flick would be for Daniel to teach a new kid, get into a tag-team battle, Daniel has to learn to teach but also learn to fight with another person, identify his own weaknesses and strengths, you could have both kids fight Miyagi in a training sequence...

There were 3?

4 actually. Not counting the reboot.

So, I was watching Grimm this morning which was a 2 hour episode and in the credits I noticed that Part 1 / Cold Blooded was written by Thomas Ian Griffith. I had no idea he was a writer. I pretty much have not seen or heard of anything from him since KKIII came out in 1989. I had to goggled his name to see what he has done since then and was surprised to see that he was in a few things I recognized like xXx, Kull the Conqueror, Vampire and Behind Enemy Lines. He retired from acting in 2007. Very short career. I guess he is now a writer or has been a writer and this of course is the first credit I noticed with his name attached to it.