Sidekicks

A shy kid moves to a new state. At first, he has trouble fitting in. He gets bullied at school and he can't get that one special girl to notice him. But all of that changes once he starts to learn martial arts. If you think I'm describing the plot of The Karate Kid, you'd be right but you might be interested to know that I'm also describing the plot of Sidekicks. In Sidekicks, that shy kid, played by Jonathan Brandis, is constantly getting lost in elaborate daydreams where he and Chuck Norris fight bloodless battles against hordes of nondescript bad guys. These daydreams, which are probably what got the movie made in the first place, tend to bog down the film, as they happen frequently and do nothing to advance the plot. Most of the action sequences in Sidekicks are riffs on earlier Chuck Norris films like Missing in Action and The Hitman. Thankfully, Sidekicks has a decent supporting cast, which includes Beau Bridges, Mako, Danica McKellar, Joe Piscopo, Richard Moll and Gerrit Graham. At the end of the day, Sidekicks is a pretty generic rip-off of The Karate Kid but it's not entirely charmless.

Rating: 59%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Jonathan Brandis played the young Bill Denbrough in IT.