The Drinker Recommends... Cobra Kai

no much like my boy Thanos I'm all about maintaining balance in the universe so after layin into mid summer for being probably my worst movie of the year until a certain other film comes out I think it's high time for a bit of positivity and optimism that means another episode of the and in this case the drinker recommends you watch Kubrick I remember the Karate Kid movie from the 1980s remember the [ __ ] bad guy Johnny who made Daniels life for misery and ended up getting his ass kicked in the finale actually it was his face ever wondered what became of that character after the events of the movie nah me neither but YouTube read certainly did in fact they commissioned an entire series based around the concept feature and most of the original actors reprising their roles from like three decades earlier and that sure was to be called Cobra Kai the show premiered to rave reviews last year returned for a second season in 2019 and by all accounts it's been renewed for a third one in 2020 Cobra Kai is one of those shows that kinda came out of nowhere and took the [ __ ] world by storm but why what the hell is it and why is it so popular well pour yourself a shot kick back and relax because the drinkers about to guide you through one of the best new TV shows of the past several years Cobra Kai picks up in the present day with the middle-aged Johnny Lawrence the antagonist of the first movie it's been three decades since this humiliating defeat at the hands of Daniel Larusso and his life's can have gone down the crapper he's down on his luck divorced borderline alcoholic and within minutes of us meeting him he's unemployed Daniel meanwhile has gone from strength to strength parley and his minor celebrity status into a successful car dealership he's got a big house two kids and a beautiful wife who loves him in short he's got everything Johnny always wanted for himself after drinking and feeling sorry for himself one night Johnny runs into local kid Miguel who's getting [ __ ] from a bunch of young punks so Johnny kicks their asses with his karate skills and sends on their way it's a short confrontation but it's enough for Miguel to see him as a total hero and he begs Johnny to train him so he can defend himself in future Johnny's reluctant at first but a chance meeting with Daniel brings his old rivalry to the surface and eventually he decides to reopen his old karate dojo Cobra Kai he bases it on the train in mantra that was once drilled into him as a teenager strike first strike hard no mercy despite the fact that he's making up most of this [ __ ] as he goes along and somehow turns out to be exactly what the kids are today are looking for and soon Cobra Kaia begins to attract other misfits and losers victims looking to defend themselves drifters in need of guidance and discipline or just lost and disenchanted kids looking for a place to belong being a mentor give Johnny a new sense of purpose and he slowly starts to grow into the role he even begins to pull his own life together for the first time in years but of course all of this soon comes to the attention of Daniel who knows all too well how dangerous Cobra Kai can be so he decides to start his own rival dojo based on a more peaceful and compassionate form of karate the two rival senses and their students eventually end up in a collision course that will be settled where else but the old valley karate championship if this all sounds like a cliched load of nostalgic [ __ ] then prepare to have your expectations subverted and not in a Ryan Johnson kinda way because despite the goofy premise Cobra Kai manages to get virtually everything about itself right it does this for many different reasons but for the sake of brevity and because I'm obsessed with lists I'm gonna give you the five main ones right here number one the characters Johnny and Daniel are the clear focus of this series and it's interesting to see how they've changed and developed over the years they were well defined archetypes back in the original movie one was the pushy and arrogant bully he throws his weight around the other was the scrappy underdog who ultimately prevails but know their roles have been kinda reversed now it's Johnny who's the downtrodden loser that you empathize with he's the stereotypical jock who crashed and burned after high school and never really lived up to his early potential Daniel with all his wealth and success and they starts off in the superior position and the shore even flirts with the idea that he's not as good a man as you might think he's not exactly a bad guy but he's kind of complacent and full of himself now and when Johnny reopens Cobra Kai he shows a more ruthless and spiteful side even being willing to damage local businesses to tres shut down his rival both characters are very much older men now and neither one is dealing with it particularly well Johnny still cruises around in a borrowed 1980 sports car trying to impress women half his age and acting like he's still the high school stud that he once was Daniel meanwhile is dealing with the void left by the death of his mentor mr. Miyagi the fact his kids are growing up fast and the realization that display offers money there's something fundamentally missing in his life the supporting characters are equally good Miguel has a hero worship thing going on towards Johnny he's eager to please and obey his instructions without hesitation but gradually he develops more self-confidence and starts to question his mentors judgment at times it even seems like Johnny needs Miguel as much as Miguel needs him Aisha is a timid overweight girl that gets shipped from her [ __ ] classmates and initially Johnny doesn't want to train her because she's a girl but finally he gives in and she becomes one of his best students but my favorite has to be hawk this guy is a [ __ ] legend and I love how he transforms from a shy geeky wimp into a brash super confident [ __ ] he goes from being a victim of bullying to kind of a bully himself and I guess that's not too far from reality when you think about it [ __ ] man even John Crees comes back and gets a few sympathetic moments the point here is that all of the characters in Cobra Kai feel fleshed out and complex in a way that very few shows manage to do nowadays nobody is a hundred percent good or bad there are varying shades of gray everyone has reasons for being who they are and what they are and how you perceive them very much comes down to your own personal perspective number two the performances I mentioned before that a lot of the cast from the original movie returned for Cobra Kai which is no mean feat considering the movie came out more than 30 years ago most of the heavy liftin in the early episodes is done by William Zabka as Johnny I honestly can't remember seeing this guy in anything beyond the 1980s which I guess please well into his character but holy [ __ ] he really nails it here delivering a quiet reserved an honest performance that's at times angry resentful self-pity inand grimly resigned to his failures he's a man broken down by a waste of life the kind of middle-aged guy who's given up on his dreams but every so often you get little flashes of his former confidence or a glimmer of approval when he sees something that reminds him of his youth and when he finally has something to strive and fight for again it feels genuinely rewarding and satisfying to watch him come alive Ralph Macchio might have had a bit more of a career in his time but he's still been largely absent from the big screen since his 1980s ad and he still looks about 20 years younger than he actually is he slides so easily back into the familiar role he's played three times already that it honestly seems like he's never been away from it he might be older now but he still got the same cockiness the same way of talking even the same mannerisms as before and you can tell how happy he is to be back playing his most iconic role again number three the writing the two dojos in this show and their respective owners represent two very different philosophies on life and in some ways I guess they kind of represent the conflicting forces of present-day American culture Johnny and Cobra Kai personified the bombastic self-confidence of the eighties discipline aggression Drive and strength a hint of resentment towards the modern world and along in for the glory days of the past on the other hand Daniel and Miyagi don't reflect the more compassionate and liberal climber of the present day emphasizing balance harmony and only fight and were necessary but what I love about the writing of this show is that neither side is portrayed as more righteous and correct than the other there's simply different perspectives each with their own strengths and weaknesses one teaches disaffected and don't kids some much-needed self-respect resilience and the courage to stand up for themselves even though some of them take it too far and starts to abuse their newfound power the other emphasizes inner peace balance and wisdom at the risk of being too passive and ineffectual a different show would have had Cobra Kai as the undisputed villains portraying them as hopelessly infected with toxic masculinity and needing to be taught a lesson by the virtuous Miyagi duel but the writers were smart enough to go a different route here and instead of condemned in one way of life while upholding the other they dear to suggest that maybe neither extreme is perfect and perhaps a bit of compromises the way forwards number 4 of the comedy Cobra Kai is a difficult beast to classify because it's neither a straight-up drama nor a full-on comedy but it does contain strong elements of both so I guess that makes it a comedy drama then anyway I can't review it without acknowledging the amazing sense of humor that it brings it's one of the few shows in recent memory that genuinely had me crying with laughter like the scene where Johnny narrates the events of Karate Kid from his own point of view don't get lost my new in business I don't know where the guy's sucker punch or the moment when he discovers YouTube for the first time about 15 years after the rest of the world a lot of the humor focuses on the culture clash between Johnny who seems to be stuck in some kind of 1980s time warp and the sensitive PC desperate not to offend society we live in today the guy simply doesn't have a [ __ ] to give and some of his lines are absolute gold nice shirt thanks joking it sucks why not same reason they're out women in the army doesn't make sense it has my shot not anymore do you losers or sea nerds see if a kid with the funny hat with tits popping out and then to the internet it's a sure that's not afraid to poke fun at political correctness or the cotton wool culture that's given birth to a generation of frightened directionless snowflakes and it dears to suggest that maybe a bit of old-school bravado discipline and adversity is what today's kids are really looking for number five nostalgia done right being based around the nineteen eighties movie you'd expect the nostalgia to be strong with this one and it is there's a ton of coal backs and references to the Karate Kid some of them are subtle some of them are subversive he says he is any particular way no matter why she's windows know I don't give it and others are surprisingly poignant and unexpected but the important thing is that they're never allowed to overshadow current events the show never uses them as a crutch to support a weak storyline or is the butt of some lame joke Cobra Kai treats its source material and its characters with the respect and reverence they're due but it's not afraid to move forward and take them in new and interesting directions and in my drunken opinion this is one of the best examples of nostalgia done right that I can think of if I had to level any kind of criticism towards the show I'd say the second season that leans a little too heavily on the younger characters with all their typical love triangles and teen angsty [ __ ] sometimes it feels like Daniel and Johnny have been pushed into the periphery of the narrative but that being said they certainly do have some awesome moments together and the episode where Johnny reconnects with his high school buddies was particularly effective although [ __ ] me I had to look them up to know that they were the original actors time has not been kind to these gentlemen either way there's more than enough going on in season two to keep you engaged despite a few wobbles and I'm very much looking forward to the third season next year all things considered this is a show that's way better than it has any right to be it would have been so easy for it to turn out as a cheap lame cringe-worthy embarrassment but that unique combination of brilliant writing biting humor honest performances and good-natured nostalgia left me with something that's an absolute joy to watch if like me you're kinda tired of shows weighed down by uninspired writing or that are so desperate not to offend that they become completely stale and bland then you'll probably get a kick out of Cobra Kai a [ __ ] awesome nineteen eighties roundhouse kick and that's all I have for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 658,048

Keywords: Cobra Kai, Karate Kid, William Zabka, Ralph Macchio, Daniel Larusso, Johnny Lawrence, Elizabeth Shoo, John Kreese, Miyagi, Karate, review, humour

Id: XEDwYbnqSiA

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 02 2019