The "Karate Kid" series, which launched in the cruel summer of 1984, has already been sequel-ized (there were four films in the original series), remade (with 2010's "The Karate Kid") and rebooted (the meta "Cobra Kai" TV series). Now comes "Karate Kid: Legends," a desperately clumsy attempt to fuse the series' various strains together, while simultaneously telling the story of a new Karate Kid that follows the series' extremely familiar template.

"Two branches, one tree" is how Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) tries to rhapsodize the bringing together of the multiple properties, but it's more like dead wood in this hack story which has all the emotional and psychological depth of a coloring book.

"Legends" tells the story of a new kid in town who uses the discipline of karate to beat the bullies in his path and get the girl. Nothing new there, aside from updating the soundtrack from Bananarama to LCD Soundsystem.

Where "Legends" trips itself up is in its attempts to tie the worlds of the OG "Karate Kid" together with 2010's remake and bring them both to the present, not because it makes any storytelling sense, but because fan service and franchise mentality trumps all other decision-making. They're doing it for the poster.

The very likable Ben Wang plays Li Fong, a high schooler who moves from Beijing to New York with his mother when she receives a job transfer. He's highly trained in kung fu, but his mother doesn't want him fighting, because of an incident that is obvious but gets slowly trickled out over the course of the story.

At the literal first place he walks into in New York, Li meets a girl, Mia (an appealing Sadie Stanley), who takes a great interest in him, while her father, Victor (Joshua Jackson), wants Li to train him. Victor is a former boxer who has fallen into debt with the neighborhood bad guy, the always scowling O'Shea (Tim Rozon), who owns a neighborhood gym where he trains his son Conor (Aramis Knight) — who is also Mia's ex-boyfriend — to be a merciless bully.

That's pretty much everybody you need to know, and they're all introduced with such speed and efficiency it's like the movie is hurrying up because it's got somewhere else it needs to be. While it briefly flips the formula (the kid is the teacher!), before long Li is pitted against Conor in a karate tournament where you just know someone's going to try to sweep the leg, and all that's left to do is, um, tie characters from the previous chapters of this series into the narrative, because this movie is being sold on the power of the past.

That groundwork is laid beginning with an opening vignette where Jackie Chan's Mr. Han, who trained Jaden Smith's character in 2010's "The Karate Kid," is retrofit to be an associate of Mr. Miyagi, who was played in the original series by Pat Morita. (Morita died in 2005, and it's a show of restraint that the filmmakers don't try to AI him back to life here.) Han is Li's trainer in Beijing, and he shows up unannounced, halfway across the world, to support him in New York.

The script by Rob Lieber then strains credulity even further by having Han track down Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) in California — cue the worst cover of "California Love" you've ever heard — and asking him to come to New York to help train a kid he's never met in a karate tournament he's never heard of, because he needs him, and only him, to help out. Why is it imperative for Daniel to be the one? Why would Daniel, a grown man with his own concerns and adult responsibilities, even consider going? The filmmakers don't bother coming up with a reason other than it's a "Karate Kid" movie, stupid, so best to just go along with it.

It's a 'Karate Kid' movie, stupid is the guiding principle that "Karate Kid: Legends" abides by. Nowhere else would any of this fly, and director Jonathan Entwistle, a TV director making his feature film debut, doesn't work to bring any sense of grit or reality to this glossy, overly simplistic world.

But the reason we're here in the first place is the original "Karate Kid," which was helmed by Oscar-winning "Rocky" director John G. Avildsen, struck a chord with its underdog story, its winning and genuinely affecting teacher-student narrative, and its emotionally triumphant climax. It's a universal story told with warmth and truth, which is why it continues to resonate with audiences four decades later.

The 2010 remake followed the same beats and also found success, and then "Cobra Kai" took a generation's nostalgia for the original property and played with its characterizations and rolled it into something fun that lovingly poked fun at itself. Macchio and original series villain William Zabka gave knowing, self-aware performances that brought a rubbery sense of reflexivity to the series.

"Legends" tells a new story but leans on those preexisting properties to provide an emotional payoff, and while it's harmless, it's as soulless as a quarterly earnings report. It's like a corporation telling you what you crave, and by the time you realize you want something different, your leg has been swept out from underneath you. Talk about a cruel summer.

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'KARATE KID: LEGENDS'

Grade: C-

MPA rating: PG-13 (for martial arts violence and some language)

Running time: 1:34

How to watch: In theaters May 30

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