Every once in a while, you hear discussion about a movie that comes across as being so incredibly bad that enough curiosity gathers in your mind to make you wanna see it for yourself. Usually, this is to try to see something so bad, it's good. I decided to check this one out based on that, but unfortunately, it turns out that it's just plain bad. For something that's supposed to be a Christmas movie, it has so little to do with Christmas spirit. It's really just a movie about a little asshole who's trying to get home for Christmas, based on a bribe. I think he does one or two generous things along the way, but none of it develops his character, and the entire movie just falls flat. We are introduced to a college student named Jake Wilkinson (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), who hasn't been home for any holidays since his mother died. As a result, his father (Gary Cole) offers him a bribe, offering up his Porsche for Jake to use once he gets there. Jake caves at the bribe, but finds himself in a Santa suit, complete with glued-on beard, in the middle of the desert instead. This is a result of him not giving the football team the correct answers to a test. Now, he must find a way to get home by 6:00 on Christmas Eve, with a sports car fueling his desire to be home far more than his family. Before all this desert drop-off stuff happens, we also meet Jake's girlfiend, Allie (Jessica Biel), who is disappointed in him after he tries to provide Christmastime tickets to an exotic location, after knowing full well that she plans to be with her family. As a result, she ends up hitching a ride with Jake's romantic competition, the incredibly one-dimensional Eddie (Adam LaVorgna). I might also mention that all three characters just so happen to come from the exact same town, which is a pretty huge coincidence, considering how far they have to travel to get to the end credits. The bottom line here is that the movie is a gigantic waste of time. Jake sort of ends up learning a little something by the end, but its nothing too deep. This is no 'Christmas Carol' or 'Wonderful Life' or even, I daresay, 'Christmas Star' in its ultimate lesson. But honestly, I got nothing from this at all. Jake's lead home by a bribe, his romantic competition, Eddie, is just another version of him, and even Allie isn't altogether likable. There's just no one to route for here, and I found myself simply not caring about anything by the end. Disney has much better Christmas movies to choose from. This one has very little going for it, if anything. It's a simple cash-in for the JTT heartthrob audience, and that's about the extent of this movie's heart. 1/5
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While browsing some original Disney streaming, this title kept popping up, so I decided to check it out. I tend to enjoy Anna Kendrick, after all, despite the cutesy stereotype some people might give her. I think she's a great actress, and give her full credit for her roles in basically anything I've seen her in - consider her a personal fave. However, this time around, that cutesy stereotype kinda came out a little too much for my taste. On Christmas Eve, Santa (Bryan Brendle) reveals himself as the parent of two children. One fateful Christmas Eve, he passes his son, Nick (Bill Hader/Owen Vaccaro) the torch of eventually becoming the next Santa. Meanwhile, his daughter, Noelle (Anna Kendrick/Oakley Bull), is given the task of spreading Christmas cheer when she grows up. She likes the idea okay, but she's disappointed that she can't do more. The years pass, and the kids grow up. But while Noelle is hard-working and enjoying her job, Nick is having a lot of trouble coming to terms with having to fill Santa's shoes. She gives him the advice to go away for a vacation, much to the dismay of pretty much the entire North Pole. The result is that he goes away for a little too long, and the upcoming Christmas might be ruined. Now it's up to Noelle to head out into the world, find her brother, and bring him home. With the North Pole missing both Nick and Noelle, other brother Gabriel, who's pretty much the tech guy around the Pole, takes charge. However, he develops a way to figure out in black and white how many good kids there are in the world as opposed to naughty kids, and plans on using this unfortunate method for the upcoming Christmas. I won't say what happens at the end, but I feel like it may already be pretty predictable. I'm a little bit stuck on this movie as far as rating it goes. On the good side of things, it might be a fun, and actually positive one for young girls. Noelle is pretty damn cutesy, as mentioned before, but she's nothing but positive, and still pretty likable. I just personally like her much better in other things. They were probably going for this, but it's very much Disney Princess in its execution - and even saying that, I can say I've seen much better Disney Princess movies. Aside from the cutesiness, it's another "save Christmas"-themed film, and a lot of the dialogue is eye-roll inducing. But, I'm also watching this as a 37-year-old man, and this is clearly much more aimed at a younger, perhaps leaning towards female, audience. It's not for me, but for the young ones, it's just fine. However, I still think there are better things to watch that are far less sugar-coated for Christmas (which is saying a lot). 2/5 Taking you back to my childhood, here's my first review to introduce a seemingly long-forgotten icon for fun, family movies, Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney). And what better place to start with a family fun favorite than with a family fun Christmas movie? But first, a wee bit of history. In 1980, a series of ads started up, featuring Ernest advertising a variety of products from popular, well-known stuff like Sprite to lesser known things like Convenience Coffee. We was a sort of go-to spokesperson for the time. His popularity took off, and soon enough, movies were made. First 'Ernest Goes to Camp' (widely regarded as the best), then this. There was also a lesser known film in the early 80s no one talks about called 'Hey Vern, It's My Family Album'. Anyway, potential review projects for the future. For now, let's just see how Ernest saves Christmas. The film opens with Santa (Douglas Seale), arriving in Orlando, Florida. In doing his research, he has come to Orlando in search of his best potential successor, a children's entertainer named Joe Carruthers (Oliver Clark). As the film unfolds, we can see certain character traits to Joe that show us exactly why he's the right person for the job. Ernest comes into it when he picks Santa up at the airport as a cab driver. See, the fun thing about Ernest is that he's that guy with about a million different jobs, seeing as he advertised so many different types of products. Anyway, Ernest hears the whole story from Santa and has no trouble believing that he's telling the truth about everything. Ernest decides to help Santa out along the way, lest there be no Christmas that year. But can they convince Joe to take over such a responsibility? We are also introduced to a girl named Harmony (Noelle Parker). She's the typical bratty kid of the late 80's/early 90's era who needs to become a better person by the end of the movie, while not being altogether so terrible. her worst crimes are being a non-believer, and being a somewhat greedy girl. She's there to be the lesson that needs to be learned, while Ernest is there for the fun of things, even though he's the main character. Hands down the best part of this movie though, is Santa, himself. Even watching it now, Seale is awesomely convincing in the role. He has an innocence about him, a twinkle in his eye, a charming smile, and the way he talks just makes you wanna listen. I dunno who my favourite Santa would be, but he's definitely up there. This IS the typical Christmas plot of "do something, or there will be no Christmas this year", but in all honesty, I can't think of very many that came before this. That's just speaking personally though, I'm sure I'm mistaken. All I know is it's the first one I can remember. I loved this one as a kid, and I think I remember a lot of my peers liking it too. The only thing about watching it now is that it's dated. For me, this one was more of a nostalgia thing, and I think it could be fun for audiences who were kids at the time. As for kids today, I couldn't promise they'd be into it. It definitely looks and feels like it comes from the 80's, and so many "saving Christmas" movies have come since that it's almost obsolete to youth nowadays. As for me, I still had fun with it, and it was a nice trip down memory lane. 3/5 Here we have another example of a WTF directorial moment, as this family-friendly title, aimed fairly heavily at children, is directed by Robert Lieberman. This is a man who once traumatized me as a kid with his movie 'Fire in the Sky', which I still claim to have the scariest movie scene of all-time (at least according to my tastes). One might be relieved to know that this is a very far cry from anything horrific though. The plot is incredibly basic, and looking at the movie poster, I have to admit that I kinda hoped for it to be another movie. It looks as though two kids manage to trap Santa Claus and gangster-style him into giving them presents. It could have been laughably out of hand. The real story, however, is the simple case of a little girl named Hallie (Thora Birch) and her brother, Ethan (Ethan Embry), facing Christmas with their parents separated (Jamey Sheridan and Harley Jane Kozak). Hallie wants nothing more than for her parents to get back together, so that they could celebrate the holidays as a family, and the film pretty much unfolds with her attempts at making her Christmas wish come true. Meanwhile, Ethan is chasing preteen love, pursuing a girl named Stephanie (Amy Oberer), who also helps them on their mission in her own way. But really, she's mostly there to give Ethan something to gravitate towards while Hallie takes part in the main plot a little bit more. And being that this was still cute, little Thora Birch, things are easier to forgive. This was even before 'Hocus Pocus', so very early in her career, and we can actually see by her performance here, why she took off as a child actress. But for as much praise as I might give Thora on her early acting, there's much more to this movie than one person's performance. Really, this is just another story about kids wishing their parents back together, and it's been done before and since then, and probably better. With that said though, it's still a harmless flick, and I'm not gonna sit here and pick it apart for being "bad". It's just a simple family flick from the early 90s, and it manages to do a lot without the use of Christmas magic so much as keeping things grounded in reality. If you're currently on board with Disney Plus, and you have kids to entertain for Christmas, this isn't a bad title to tune into. But I will say that there are better Christmas movies out there, and this does kinda fade into the background as its not classic. It's just something that's been done before, with Christmas as its setting. The most interesting part about it, perhaps, is seeing these current grown adults as children who still have a sparkle of Christmas magic in their eyes. 3/5 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 Now here's a title that I let go right by me, without paying much attention. It's strangely right in my wheelhouse, but at the time of its 2005 release, my wheelhouse wasn't entirely established yet. Back then, I was mostly familiar with Robert Downey Jr. from 'Chaplin', and Val Kilmer as 'Batman' or Madmartigan from 'Willow'. I was always familiar with the title, but kinda overlooked it as a generic action movie. Now that I've seen it, it's pretty much an instant favorite. We open with our main character and narrator, Harry Lockhart, beginning a recap of how he got to a Hollywood party. After an unsuccessful robbery, and a police chase, Harry finds himself hiding in an audition. Having lost his friend during the robbery, he has a break-down which is mistaken as method acting. An openly gay private investigator, "Gay" Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer) suggests for him to participate in a real investigation in order to develop his character. Meanwhile, Harry meets aspiring actress Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), finding out that she's actually a childhood crush all grown up. While Harry and Perry find themselves in an intricate murder case, events end up entangling themselves, giving "everyman" character, Harry, a personal vendetta. Perry, Harry and Harmony end up reluctantly working together to get to the bottom of things. There's so much I appreciate about this one, and I'm happy to have found another movie to add to my rewatchable collection. For me, Harry is a potential new favourite character. Imagine Tony Stark if he had average, everyday intelligence, leaning a bit towards dumb, but still only human. He still has that sense of humor mixed with that intensity when things get serious. On the other side of things, we have Perry, who is a real asshole, but feeds Harry some of the funniest insults. The one about looking up "idiot" in the dictionary is kinda legendary. In fact, the perfect scene to illustrate these two interacting with each other. It's not enough to call it bickering back and forth, but these two really don't like each other and its perfectly clear. This is another one that follows in the footsteps of unconventional Christmas movies, where Christmas takes place in the background almost completely. It's an action comedy you could watch pretty much any time of year. The writer/director of this one is Shane Black, who we either remember very fondly for penning 'Lethal Weapon', or not so fondly for executing 'Iron Man 3' (which still isn't horrible, but definitely a weak chapter of the MCU). I'd have to say, after scrolling through his IMDb resume, this is one of his best titles for sure. It's a lot of fun, at times intense, at times laugh out loud funny, and it'll even leave you a bit squeamish without going incredibly overboard. There IS a rough torture scene here, but it's balanced out with humour and doesn't really show anything. In fact, it's kinda similar to 'Lethal Weapon's torture scene... maybe Shane Black didn't get a lot of hugs growing up? Anyway, I loved it, its a new fave for sure! 5/5 In all the years of traditional Christmas movies, 'Holiday Inn' sorta stood out to me as a renowned Christmas classic that I've managed to overlook completely until now. A large reason for picking this title for a Christmas review is, indeed, to finally say that I've seen it. I'll tell you right away that this wasn't entirely up my alley, and a particular, shall we say, uncomfortable musical number makes it incredibly dated in a pretty bad way. But before I get into things bear in mind that I can still respect the fact that there's a lot more to this film that makes it a classic in the eyes of many. Not the least of which is the music. Fun fact for any newcomers, this one earned a Best Original Song Oscar, if you can believe it, 'White Christmas'. Y'know, the best selling single of all time according to Guinness? The one Christmas song you're 100% guaranteed to hear some version of around the holidays? And yes, the most popular version of the song is performed by Bing Crosby, who earned that Oscar with his performance. It's pretty well solidified in the history books. Crooner Jim Hardy (Crosby) is crazy for a lovely singer and talented dancer, Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds). However, a suave dancer, and... friend?... to Jim, named Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire), recently brushed off by a devious vixen, Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale), cuts in and takes Linda out from under Jim's nose. As it all unfolds things get kinda complicated, but all in all, we're talking about a love triangle story unfolding with the setting as Jim's Holiday Inn - a supper club open for 15 holidays of the year. Christmas is certainly the main focus here, but New Years, Lincoln's Birthday (*cringe*), Valentine's Day, Easter, the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and several more are represented as the year unfolds. As one could imagine, the biggest star of this movie is the music. There's plenty of original songs here, written by the film's producer, Irving Berlin. Most of them have that nice, classic atmosphere you could only get with a classic film from the 40's, with plenty of great song and dance numbers, and plenty of heart despite a few dated uncomfortable moments here and there. As I mentioned before, this isn't entirely up my alley, but I fully respect what it is, and the fact that it's a beloved and perhaps traditional film for many. I'm certainly not here to give it a bad review of any sort, I'm just very particular about my musicals. I generally want some off the wall comedy ('Cannibal the Musical'), or dream-like stuff ('La La Land') going on, and all the normalish, realistic stuff I find kinda "meh". That was sadly the case for me here, but it just goes to show that we're all very different in tastes. If you love this, I'm not gonna argue its quality or hold it against you in any way... but c'mon people, the Lincoln's Birthday scene would not fly these days. 3/5 I can instantly give this movie plenty of credit for being what it is - a Christmas, comedy, horror, musical with zombies. I mean, for someone like me, that's a must-see. The trailer spoke to me with the tagline "'Shaun of the Dead' meets 'La La Land'", as I love both of those movies, and it wasn't hard to add this one to the list, knowing I'd take away more than the average person because I love the strange and unusual with a sense of humor. To top it all off, it's British comedy, which I tend to eat up. Anna Shepherd (Ella Hunt) lives in the town of Little Haven, Scotland. On her way to becoming a secondary school graduate, she plans to travel for a year. Her Dad, Tony (Mark Benton), isn't a fan of this idea at all. Perhaps because he's also the school's janitor, and just wants something more for his daughter. In so many movies like this you have two characters fight, part ways, and try to find each other by the end of the movie. That's basically the relationship here between them. Anna's best friend, John (Malcolm Cumming), is secretly in love with her, with the competition of a cocky jock type named Nick (Ben Wiggins). We kinda hate Nick for being "that guy", but damned if he doesn't have the best song of the film, 'Soldier at War'. More on that in a bit. Other friends, Chris (Christopher Leveaux) is having trouble with a school assignment, and Steph (Sarah Swire) is trying to get past the black and white ideas of our villain of this movie, Principal Savage (Paul Kaye), with her school paper articles. All are kinda facing their own thing, but the main focus is definitely the friend-in-love story between Anna and John. As the film unfolds with its very humanistic story lines, a zombie apocalypse unfolds in the background, and before we know it, these kids are faced with more than just a few mild personal challenges. The group sings and dances their way through this musical comedy horror shindig, and by the end, I can openly admit that I had a lot of fun with this one, as I predicted. It's pretty well in my wheelhouse, but that doesn't mean it's just something I'd recommend to anyone. Certain flaws this movie have include a few glaring things, one of which is having the whole zombie thing feel placed completely to the side and added in just because zombies sell. Really, they could have used anything as the threat. It feels more like a later episode of 'Walking Dead' when they manage to accept the zombies as a way of life. The difference being, in 'Walking Dead', lots of time went by before reaching that point. The film is definitely more about teen angst and things like that, using the zombies as the "more intense challenge". Now, about the music. I feel very strange about it, because there's really only one song that stood out in regards to the zombie apocalypse (being 'Soldier at War'). This pushes it even further into the background, and the songs made for the movie mostly have some kind of deeper, double meaning. I can appreciate that, and I do enjoy most of the songs, but perhaps not for the reasons I'm supposed to. If you introduced someone to this soundtrack, it would be hard to narrow it down to 'Anna and the Apocalypse' based on its lyrical content. So, I think the songs are mostly pretty great, but as something non-movie related. My personal favorites being 'Turning My Life Around' and 'Human Voice', but again, based on lyrics much more than their relationship to the film. While I say I had a lot of fun with this one, that's just me talking. Keep in mind that most of my favorite movies are pretty out there and imaginative, but don't necessarily speak to the masses. I couldn't see this becoming some kind of Christmas classic to watch annually (by the way, yes, there are some Christmas songs too. It's still a Christmas movie with a zombie apocalypse). But it is almost definitely something I'll be revisiting. I've seen better in the form of horror musicals ('Evil Dead' being the very best, even if it is stage), but it's still so out there that it can be a lot of fun if you allow it to be. 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 Just when it looked like these Christmas movies were on the up and up, they must plummet for yet another negative one. But trust me when I say I feel that most of the people out there would agree with a lot of what I have to say about it. In this particular case, we have a gigantic 'Home Alone' rip-off that features criminals that make Harry and Marv look like Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson. The kid, in question, is a girl named Izzy (Cameron Seely). Imagine a nine-year-old girl trying to do her best Kevin McCallister impression, but doing it "wrong". At least that was my takeaway, because this is trying so hard to be 'Home Alone', it's ridiculous. This is a made-for-TV movie, released January of this year... just in time for Christmas. It starts out with Izzy reminding her parents (Mother played by Denise Richards, Father played by Sean O'Bryan) about taking her after school to get a guitar, during a special sale. The parents forget to pick her up after school, for apparently the umpteenth time, and it's during a bad snow storm, making things more difficult. Meanwhile, three crooks (Katrina Begin, Douglas Spain, and Jake Van Wagoner) who have recently robbed a Salvation Army store head to the school to lay low, believing it to be abandoned and... yeah, it's 'Home Alone' in a school. The criminals end up holding the school's janitor, and Izzy's family's friend, Ray (Danny Glover, making me thank God 'Lethal Weapon' is next on this review list) captive while Izzy goes around doing really weak trap stuff that make 'Home Alone's traps look like Kevin's playing a game of 'Saw'. The parents do end up figuring things out, except for the fact that they're terrible parents, and do manage to start making their way back to her. But their entire purpose in this is to be the terrible prat fall parents. Dad gets injured, Mom screams, it's supposed to be funny but we just roll our eyes at it. It's painful to watch, but not in the god 'Home Alone' way. Speaking of which, as a 'Home Alone' wannabe, I mean that to such an extent that even the music in some parts and pretty well copy and paste with a few note adjustments. Believe me, if you're a 'Home Alone' fan, you will notice it as soon as it happens. It's THAT close. Besides that, some of the dialogue is spot on as well, like Denise Richards screaming "We did it again!" (famous lines from, 'Home Alone 2' anyone?) or Izzy realizing that she's alone, with that repeat line, the original being "I made my family disappear? I made my family disappear!" It's almost worth checking out (currently available on Netflix) just to see how bad it actually is. Almost! But really and truly, it's pretty well a waste of time altogether. Even for a made for TV film, it's just a bit too much. I dunno if they thought they needed a 'Home Alone' for a new generation or something, but if that's the case, it's pointless. 'Home Alone' is a timeless classic. This, even if you do watch it, will be forgotten about in seconds as you toss it aside as nothing more than a copycat that pulls things back embarrassingly significantly. 1/5 |