6. The Karate Kid (1984)
I'm taking a risk of sorts with this one, because I'm sure a whole bunch of people think that this is fine, but even as a kid I could never escape the feeling that
The Karate Kid ended a little too abruptly for my liking - it finishes at the exact moment that it possibly could have finished without people being genuinely offended by the speed of it all. To put that into perspective, the movie literally ends 30 seconds after kung-fu kid Daniel LaRusso delivers his final kick. Now maybe in this era of movies that are too long, that's a good thing, but c'mon - 30 seconds?! If you've seen
The Karate Kid, you'll know that it culminates in a karate competition, in which semi-douche hero LaRusso finds himself in the finale against bully rival Johnny (the '80s). He eventually opts to deliver a super- kick into Johnny's face, winning the fight: the music swells, Daniel is lifted into the crowd, Johnny repents for his sins, Elizabeth Shue hugs Daniel, and then we freeze frame on Mr. Miyagi's incredibly touched face. But the credits start rolling before this music has even finished, and it all feels incredibly slap-dash, as if the the filmmakers were concerned they they'd already made a movie called
The Karate Kid than ran at over 2 hours.