source: Sidekicks

Yeah when i saw sidekicks i wanted to cry. not for Barry for myself because i could not believe i wasted my time like that. #1. The movie had a bad plot to it. #2. Chuck Norris is possible the worst actor out there, really he hasn't had a good movie ever. In fact i think he is the worst actor ever. So anyway if you have an hour and half to kill and you have the choice to watch sidekicks or watch paint dry Please save yourself and watch the paint. Really if it was a good movie you would be able to buy it somewhere. Because my friends have tried to buy it and it is no where to be found. When amazon.com doesn't even carry it....yeah that should they you something. I really advise you not to watch this movie.

If you've seen "Karate Kid", there's no real reason to see this. However, kids who haven't seen K.K. will probably like this. The hero is sympathetic, and people will be able to relate to his fantasies of Chuck and himself defeating the enemies (thought the fantasies are too cartoonish). Mako, as usual, is great. Chuck's okay, though the movie eventually seems to become an egofest for him.

Karate Kid movie was a great success on the eighties, after that film many movies came out trying to repeat the formula,movies like "No retreat,no surrender","karate kimura","American shaolin",all them shows a weak kid who trains on martial arts to overcome his problems, Sidekicks is one of those films but like the rest of the clones of karate kid, sidekicks has it's own style. This film shows what really martial arts are about,the overcoming physical and mental of the individual...Jonathan Brandis plays a kid who dreams with his idol, Chuck Norris, and dreams with fight next to him in many of his films, he also doesn't have a good health and the dream of become like chuck make him start training to overcome all his troubles. The cast of the film is well chosen, Mako is fantastic as the master of the kid and Julia nickson is gorgeous as teacher of the main character,the scene of Julia doing the martial arts exhibition on the tournament is really impressive,Brandis,is really intense on his role, you can always feels the anger, loneliness,sadness of the character and what to say about Chuck Norris? he play himself giving to his character humanity and reasons to make the kid and the audience to be a better athlete and better persons...Maybe I'm the biggest fan of this film on earth, but I really love it's message...Sidekicks deserved a better luck on box office and critics reviews but people has many prejudices on martial arts films, if you are not prejudiced and wants to have a great time, enjoy this film.

Whenever that beard graces the screen, you know it is going to be a fantastic film! Start with the fact that you have the overly nerdy, can't do anything for himself kid in Jonathan Brandis (Barry). Then add on that he pretty much hallucinates himself destroying everything and everyone with Chuck Norris in dream sequences. The man played himself in this movie because he needs no character. He is not a fictional dominant force, he is a dominant force. The scene where Barry is trying to climb the rope in gym and all of a sudden Chuck appears next to him is pure gold. Chuck leads by example and shows Barry how to climb that rope. If that doesn't motivate, I don't know what can. And finally, watching Chuck in his real element at the end of the film destroying Joe Piscopo (Kelly Stone) in a karate competition is amazing. It was no Karate Kid ending but great anyway. Chuck Norris is the greatest man alive and we should all hope to be like him someday.

Basically, this movie starts out with a young boy who is constantly daydreaming (to put it lightly) that he is an action hero who is fighting along side with Chuck Norris. He has an all-consuming obsession with Chuck, and, naturally, is bullied and picked on in school as a result. Anyway i think this kid is seriously mentally ill - he completely zones out and imagines elaborate situations in which he and Chuck are fighting side by side. We're lead to believe that Chuck Norris is attending some high school karate event in some small town and agrees to be a fourth member of the kids team. Seems unlikely to me. However this all could be one big fantasy and Chuck is never in the building in the first place. He imagined that Chuck Norris was a member of his team. While researching other reviews online, it seems that nobody else has questioned whether or not Chuck was actually there in the fist place! And then the final scene is what really made me question it- the kid is walking away from Chuck, who is sitting on a bench, and then he turns back and Chuck has magically disappeared.The real question is - was Chuck ever really there? OR was this just a way of showing the audience how awesomely swift Chuck Norris is, that he could easily have gotten up and likely traveled a few miles in that amount of time. Tough question - based on evidence I would like to go with the hypothesis that he was never there, but then again we all know that Chuck is the fastest man alive. So I guess it is hard to say with certainty. Anyway i wouldn't describe this as a cinematic masterpiece, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys these kinds of movies. It's super entertaining and has some great fight scenes from Chuck Norris.. What else do you want..

Barry, (Jonathan Brandis) an asthmatic daydreaming loser who wants to learn karate to protect himself from the school beating (just like his fantasy man, Chuck Norris), that he in all likelihood brings upon himself by being an unlikable spaz. Chuck's brother Aaron, is a horrible director and this film made want to curl up in a fetal position and just cry for inflicting my eyes with this horrid excuse for a movie. The great Mako is wasted here and can ANYone tell me why Joe Piscopo keeps getting jobs when everything he does is horrible?? this film is among the crappiest movies I've ever seen and they should just burn any existing copies. I wouldn't be surprised if this and "Ladybugs" in all likelihood contributed to the main actor's suicide. My Grade: F

Joe however you spell his last name is funny. I mean real funny. I love the part where he plays these fantasy bad guys. The best part is where he makes a fool out of himself when he fights Chuck in a tournament. The other part I get a laugh out of is the biker and the hot Chinese soup. Well the rest, of it is a bit sappy, but oh well.

Sidekicks is a pretty entertaining little film about a young, asthmatic boy who, in his imagination, is the sidekick to his hero, Chuck Norris. Barry, the kid (Brandis) is taught martial arts by his teacher's uncle (Mako). The story culminates with an exciting martial arts exhibition where Barry meets his idol, Chuck Norris, who agrees to help the boy in the competition. A wish-fullfilment movie in the juvenile sense. Although Chuck has definitely had his day, the idea of meeting and being helped by your fantasy hero, is good fodder for a kids film like this. Some people will probably quibble at the occasional silliness (Richard Moll's ridiculous gym teacher, and Piscopo's over-the-top bad guy karate teacher, to name a few), as well as the obvious self-promotion for Chuck Norris, but I think that the fantasy of the film will work itself over it's intended audience, who should enjoy this little treat of a movie.

Aaron's firmly in the driver's seat while brother Chuck lays down the action yet again in this enjoyable and harmless action romp, a re-hash of The Karate Kid only less involved and played mainly for laughs. Brandis is the asthma-induced child who dreams of fighting alongside his screen hero Chuck Norris. Mako plays loveable sage Mr. Lee who teaches the kid a little confidence and karate and soon enough his dreams form reality as the man himself soon turns up in the flesh at a martial arts tournament. Tame and undemanding, Sidekicks is an idle gem that whiles the hours away.