by E.J. Lambda

Created on: February 03, 2009

Let us talk about Daniel Laruso. Quite possibly the most ungrateful, whiney, annoying karate character in the long distinguished history of ungrateful, whiney, and annoying karate characters. The very first film opens with him bitching about having to move to California from New "Joisey". What he should have been complaining about was having to travel cross-country in that rat-trap with wheels his mom called a car. His mom tries to explain how utterly fabulous California is by stating that in Cali "you wake up, roll out of bed, and 'plop' you're in your swimming pool!" Now if that was true I'd have to assume the drowning rate in California would be of genocidal proportions.

Daniels (Ralph Macchio) first act in the movie is to wussy-kick a rickety gate open only to bean resident mexican, Freddy Fernandez, in the eye. Freddy befriends him probably in an attempt to impress Daniel with his "Makin' Bacon" t-shirt. Freddy invites Daniel to a beach party where he promptly seduces "Ali with an i" (Elizabeth Shue) with his Pee-wee grade soccer skills. Alis ex-boyfriend, Johnny (William Zabka) and his karate gang of Cobra Kais roar down to the beach on motorcycles. Discovering Daniel trying to make time with Ali, Johnny starts a fight in which Daniel mercilessly kicks his own ass.

The next day Daniel attempts to hide his black eye from his mom by being defensive and wearing sunglasses large enough to provide shade to a small country. At school Daniel fares no better as he is the target of well-deserved ridicule. We catch a scene of Daniel visiting a karate studio only to discover it's a nest of Kobra Kais. Daniel heads back to a restaurant, dejected, where his mom tells him she's gonna be slinging-hash for drunk truckers because "she could never make this kinda money working in computers". WTF?! Later that night the Kobra Kais chase Daniel and kick him off his "Miyagi Turbo" bike and down a steep hill. He cries, whines, and throws his bike into a dumpster blaming it because he's a raging wimp! Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) fixes Daniels bike never explaining why an apartment handyman is an expert bike repair specialist.

Daniel soon finds someone who won't laugh at him too much and leeches onto Mr. Miyagi like a deer-tick. Mr. Miyagi, in an attempt to get rid of Daniel, makes him a stupid costume to go to a Halloween dance which Daniel wastes no time in screwing up by soaking Johnny (and his righteous doobage) with a large hose while he's in a stall of the school crapper.

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