A Christmas movie I skipped over last year for the simple reason of just not caring, I decided to do it up this year and just get it out of the way. It sounds harsh, I know, but 'The Nutcracker' was never so much a musical than a ballet, and ballets are definitely not in my wheelhouse. But fantasy is, so I kinda figured why not? Maybe there would be something I could take away from it. But there's a problem I had going into this - I had never bothered to see 'The Nutcracker' beforehand. I only ever really knew the music from it. Clara (Mackenzie Foy) wants an incredibly unique key for Christmas. It's the key to a mysterious box that her late mother gave her. During a Victorian Christmas party, hosted by her Godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman), she is given a golden thread, which leads her to the key, which disappears into a strange, parallel world. Here, she meets a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), some mice, and representatives of three of the Four Realms; Shiver (Richard E. Grant) of the Land of Snowflakes, Hawthorne (Eugenio Derbez) of the Land of Flowers and the Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightly) of the Land of Sweets. Sugar Plum shows Clara a stage performance that retells the story of when her mother visited their world years before. In other words, they watch the original 'Nutcracker' Ballet. Clara learns that the ominous fourth realm, the Land of Amusements, ruled by Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) is holding Clara's key that she's searching for. Further learning that Mother Ginger is kinda ruling things with an iron fist, Clara and Phillip brave the fourth realm, and in finding her key, hopefully restoring order to this strange, miniature world. But will they discover that there's more than meets the eye to Mother Ginger? Having not seen the original 'Nutcracker', this movie left me feeling a bit like I should have done my homework. I don't have much to compare it to, as this was my first 'Nutcracker' experience. But with that said, in many ways, it reminded me of the 2010 version 'Alice in Wonderland', as though it's a sort of soft reboot. It's an experience for a new generation, an it looks really good, but the older generation kinda wonders if it was any good or not. It's perfectly passable, but there's just something a tiny bit off about it. It's not horrible, but just very bland and unexciting, even during the "intense" parts. For yours truly, this is another one of those titles that's just kinda "there". It could come or go, and I wouldn't care either way. It was fun for what it was, but I think it's gonna appeal more to fans of the original source material, or perhaps children who are new to this whole thing. But according to other reviews, several seem to think this was a weak and altogether unnecessary title, so you might wanna take my review with a grain of salt. Personally, I see this as relatively decent for what it is, and it could be seen as a fun adventure for the young and young at heart in the same way 2010's 'Alice in Wonderland' was. But it's still not for me, and probably not for anyone else who isn't into the whole ballet thing. It's another one of these titles I can't recommend one way or the other. But if you enjoy the original 'Nutcracker' story, it may be something to check out. 2/5
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Bringing things back to Christmas, let's delve into the true meaning of the holiday with a retelling of the Nativity Story through the eyes of the animals, namely a young donkey named Bo (Steven Yeun). We are introduced to Bo as he breaks free from a village mill, only to run into the virgin Mary (Gina Rodriguez) who has recently been told by God that she will give birth to his son. While they hit it off very well, Joseph (Zachary Levi) is looking for answers on how to support Mary through her pregnancy. We learn that King Herod (Christopher Plummer) hires an assassin to get rid of Jesus, who he sees as a threat to his throne. When Bo learns of this, he teams up with a sheep named Ruth (Aidy Bryant) who has lost her flock, and an optimistic dove named Dave (Keegan-Michael Key) to stop him. They are further aided by the three camels, Deborah, Cyrus and Felix (Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry and Tracey Morgan, respectively) of the three wise men, Balthazar, Caspar and Melchior (Phil Morris, Joel Osteen, and Fred Tatasciore, respectively) Despite an all-star cast (some of whom I still haven't mentioned), and being a wide release, this one just didn't make it very far in the grand scheme of things. Even I completely overlooked it for my 2017 Christmas special, as it just looked a bit too childish. I love animation, but there was a certain aura of innocence around this that lead me to believe I wouldn't like it much. Truth be told, I was right, but that doesn't make the movie all that bad. While it's absolutely not for me, and I was often rolling my eyes at the intensity of the lameness of some of these jokes, I had to kinda go back in time in my head. I ended up asking myself if I'd like this as a kid, and I think I would have, but it still wouldn't have been something I'd keep going back to. Even then, it's a movie for kids pretty much 7 or under. It's perfectly innocent, and fun for little kids, but I'd have to forewarn parent that this is THAT kind of movie. What I mean by that is that it's the kind of movie your little kid might wanna watch and rewach, but it'll become a pain in your ass as a parent because you know there's far better stuff out there. It's certainly not something I'm gonna be going back to anytime soon, as it has the quality of a straight-to-TV movie. But with that said, if you're an elementary school parent, it might be a good one to sit your young one down in front of for an hour and a half of entertainment. It's lame, but perfectly passable for what it''s trying to do. Perhaps a good way to do it after the crazy hustle-bustle of the holiday season would be to find it on Netflix, turn it on, and let your kid be entertained while you take a nice nap. 'Cause trust me, this one is kinda sleep-inducing for us grown-ups. It's about as edgy as a movie Ned Flanders would make. 3/5 It's pretty rare nowadays that any movie comes along and, weather good or bad, manages to reignite the Christmas spirit I remember having when I was a kid. That certain magical feeling of butterflies in my stomach as I anticipated every December 24th when Santa would come along and reward my good behavior with toys and candy. I think 'Arthur Christmas' was the last time I remember feeling that way. A big part of it is making the concept of Santa's deliveries magical but seemingly plausible, remembering that Santa is so much about magic. For me, this one accomplished all of that, and if I'm honest, I enjoyed this one. But it's certainly not without a few flaws. 'The Christmas Chronicles' tells the story about two siblings on Christmas Eve. Kate (Darby Camp) is the little sister who still believes in Santa Claus, and still has that genuine Christmas spirit. Her character is a little bit irritating, but she's no Izzy from 'Christmas Break-In'. Teddy (Judah Lewis) is the big brother preteen who doesn't believe in Santa anymore, especially since his Dad recently died (in NOT a typical car accident, thank you!) Kate comes up with the idea to capture Santa in order to prove his existence, and asks for Teddy's help in true sibling blackmail fashion. During the night, Kate and Teddy are awoken by Santa doing his thing, and they hop on board his sleigh like any kid might dream of doing. When Santa (Kurt Russell) realizes they're there, he's startled, and there's a massive 'Red Sleigh Down' situation going on, dooming Christmas. Realizing their mistake, the kids offer to help in any way they can to help Santa save Christmas. As i mentioned, the film is not without a few problems. The glaring one for yours truly was the musical number. Anyone who has seen this knows about it. But it does have the potential to become this unnecessary guilty pleasure moment, much like the Vanilla Ice moment in 'Secret of the Ooze', only because Kurt Russell is so into it. Furthermore, I wasn't a big fan of either kid. I don't blame the kids so much as the director, asking them to ham it up in certain moments. We also have a very different idea of Christmas elves here, where they are cartoonishly CG'd, and truthfully resemble garden gnomes a bit more. They kinda seem like someone saw 'Gnomeo & Juliette' and 'Trolls' and said, "Imagine their babies, and those are the Christmas elves." They're cute, but I dunno how I feel about them. It just feels like cashing in on the popularity of the cuteness factor that so many things do nowadays. The real star of the movie is Kurt Russell as Santa Claus. There's something perfectly awesome about such a bad ass actor portraying the jolly (not fat) man, and I totally dig the whole bad ass Santa idea. The only other time I really remember it was in 'Rise of the Guardians'. I don't know that I prefer it from the traditional good guy Santa, but it's a fun concept, and Kurt does a great job, meeting the whole thing in the middle. He's stern, but he's a perfectly friendly guy, all the same. Beyond that, I had to appreciate so many of the moments in this that displayed Santa's magic on the screen. My favourite bits were seeing how Santa chimney-jumps, and when we get to see what's inside Santa's sack of gifts. The reindeer are pretty cool as well, but I didn't think they did much with them, other than provide a randomly necessary means of transportation. But that's a nitpick on my part. The reindeer so seldom get time in the spotlight. Regardless of any criticism, this is just a perfectly decent family movie on Netflix, and it's right where it needs to be. Had this been a big screen thing, I might be a bit more critical. But the film is perfectly magical for the kids watching, and will probably get them into the spirit of things. And if any adults watching are anything like me, they might get a kick out of certain aspects throughout, especially seeing Snake Plissken in big, red suit. Not without its problems, but still a lot of fun, and it worked on me as far as reigniting Christmas spirit. 4/5 Stumbling on this one in my search, I decided to check it out so that maybe I could take a peak at what a Japanese anime film's take on a Christmas story might be like. After last year's Ghibli marathon, I've gained a bit of an interest in the culture's way of expressing themselves through film. What's so interesting to me, however, is that even for a Christmas film, this is a culture that is not afraid to get dark. 'Tokyo Godfathers' takes place around the Christmas - New Year holiday, and the season is used as much more of a backdrop than anything. I wouldn't fully consider this a "Christmas movie" in the traditional sense, so much as a story about homelessness and abandonment. That's not to say it's bad, it's actually a great story, But so help me, I just don't get "Christmas" from this one, despite covering themes about acts of kindness, humanity, and valuable lessons learned along the way. We meet three very different homeless people, who have made themselves a sort of family. Gin (Tôru Emori) is your average, middle-aged homeless man with a bit of a drinking/anger problem; Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki) is a former drag queen who dreams of one day being a mother; and Miyuki (Aya Okamoto) is a young runaway girl, having no place to turn to after wounding her father. We pretty much immediately click with this group, Gin being the glass half empty, Hana being the glass half full, and Miyuki is caught in the middle. One day, while rummaging through some trash, they find an abandoned baby. Hana, with her motherly desires, wants to try to take care of the baby and have her dreams come true. But being the realist, Gin insists that they just drop it off at the police station and let them take care of the situation. They sleep on it, and then decide the thing to do is to find this child's real parents, and set out to do just that. Along the way, they each end up revealing a lot about their pasts and how they became homeless, each of them a pretty sad story. That's more or less where the movie gets dark in its atmosphere (I mean, other than finding a baby among a heap of garbage), with this trio wanting whats best for this baby, and not to be in the same situation as them. And speaking of dark, it gets even darker when it gets to the climax, and you really end up feeling the utmost empathy for this poor baby through the whole movie. You want nothing more than for this kid to be safe. So as far as recommending it, it's a tough one. As far as it falling into my traditional Christmas movie list, it really doesn't stand a chance. However, as a dark anime about tough but important themes that carries a mild sense of humor with it, it's actually great. Somehow this movie balances the dark and cold of the winter with a bunch heartwarming moments. Atmospherically, I'd almost compare it to 'A Christmas Carol', but certainly not by theme. If you're an anime fan who likes a good story, if you can find it, check it out. Just be forewarned, an English dub of the film is damn near impossible to find. 3/5 |