BEFORE: Well, about 8 or 10 actors carry over from "The Christmas Chronicles", some in-person and some through voice performances, so this is the obvious way to finish the chain for the year - and I'm only THREE years late in getting to watch this sequel, as opposed to FIVE years late watching the first film. But let's just focus on Darby Camp and Kurt Russell carrying over, the others will be listed below.
This is the last movie for 2023, so here are December's totals, and it was another "perfect" chain for the FIFTH year in a row.
1 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Clifford the Big Red Dog
2 Movies watched on cable (not saved): The Special Relationship, The Four Feathers
3 watched on Netflix: Father Christmas Is Back, The Christmas Chronicles, The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two
1 watched on HBO MAX: The Daytrippers
7 TOTAL
I'm not tired of this format just yet, because it seems to be working, and watching movies in random order now feels like complete chaos and madness to me. It's almost like if I can just keep this ONE facet of my life in order then maybe I'm doing OK? But that's probably not healthy because then I allow myself to let some other things slip. Anyway it's been a good and crazy Movie Year, I've now got a week to write a wrap-up, double check my totals and try to cue up something for January 2024. It's going to be tight, but hey, if I suddenly find myself with a lot of free time in January, that means more time available for organizing the list. And job-hunting, that's really more important.
In terms of Christmas movies, I went through my list and found everything that I'd tagged as holiday-themed, and I've put them all next to each other on the list. There are actually more than I thought, 27 or so, that I'm tracking - which greatly increases the chance of getting to another 2 or 3 of them next year. I'm aiming for "Christmas in Paradise", which got left off this year, but there are other options, I just need to look for actors who are in more than one and then some other movies to link them together. I can see Julie Hagerty is in two movies on the list, if I can go through some more cast lists I may find some other connections, like I did this year.
THE PLOT: Kate Pierce, now a cynical teen, is unexpectedly reunited with Santa Claus when a mysterious troublemaker threatens to cancel Christmas - forever.
AFTER: It's Christmas Eve as I type this, but it will probably be Christmas morning when I post. One day ends, another begins. One Movie Year ends, another one will begin in a week. Or will it? I don't know any more, my job's got me so thrown off base that I don't know whether I want things to continue, or if I want them to end so I can start something new. Life's like that sometimes, and Christmas is like that this year, sort of. It's the first time that I can remember just planning to stay at home, and not go driving or flying somewhere to meet up with family. It doesn't exactly feel WRONG, but also, it's not what I've become accustomed to. I didn't make my Christmas song mix this year, I didn't mail out Christmas cards, and we're not driving up to Massachusetts and stopping at a casino in Connecticut, which became our normal pattern at some point. But my parents don't live up in Massachusetts any more, they're down in North Carolina, and I visited them in October, and that really wasn't that long ago, it just feels like it was. And it feels like I'm letting them down by not going to visit for the holiday break.
Well, so I'm stuck at home, we're going to cook lasagna tomorrow, which is the new habit/pattern that got created during the pandemic. So it's the new same, but it maybe doesn't feel as festive as it could feel. Oh, we'll watch "A Christmas Story" and I may pop in "Bad Santa 2" again this week, we'll see. But I think I watched that last year, and I try to also watch the Albert Finney version of "Scrooge" because it's my favorite. I just don't have much time tonight, but really, tonight would be the best time to do that, and "A Christmas Story" will air on repeat all day tomorrow, so I can catch it any time. I just may have outgrown most of the traditional trappings, that's all. It's not really a holiday for people in their mid-50's, but on Thursday we may drive out to Long Island and visit an outlet mall, where my wife and I may buy gifts for each other on the fly, and then drive over to a Chinese food buffet.
It's a similar problem encountered by Katie Pierce in tonight's movie, it's Christmas time again, maybe two years after the last film, and she finds herself in the Caribbean on a vacation planned by her mother's boyfriend. And sure, it's Christmas but it maybe doesn't feel like it, because she's not at home in Massachusetts, there's no snow, and it's like 80 degrees. (Thanks to climate change, maybe someday all Christmases will be like that...). She's a True Believer, after all, and what she believes in is Santa Claus coming to her, in desperate need of help. Well, be careful what you wish for... Actually Kate plans to run away back to Massachusetts, if she can just get a ride to the airport and act like an old enough teen to not be questioned about why she's traveling alone.
But on the way to the airport, her shuttle cart driver throws her (and her mom's boyfriend's son, who was hiding on the same cart) through a wormhole to the North Pole, where they both start to freeze because they're dressed for tropical weather - thankfully Santa Claus sees everything and spots them while he's out hunting a YuleCat, which preys on reindeer. Santa gets Kate and Jack inside the Borealis dome, and Mrs. Claus gets to thawing them out with holiday elixirs and potions. Kate naturally assumes that Santa teleported them to the North Pole because he needs her help again, but that's not the case at all, it's the work of Belsnickel, a former elf who rejected all that Santa Claus stands for and was turned human as a result. He now lives at the South Pole, a clear sign that he is the Anti-Santa.
Belsnickel has used the opportunity of Santa rescuing Kate to get inside the dome at the North Pole himself, who knows what damage he'll cause as he gets his revenge on St. Nick and all that he stands for. Santa wants to immediately return Kate to Cancun, but since their parents have conveniently gone off on a side trip to see Mayan ruins (tickets provided by Belsnickel) the kids get to sleep over one night at Santa's castle, see the Elven village, and such. This is the third film IN A ROW where the parental figure has been taken out of the equation, on either a business trip or an overnight shift at the hospital or a trip to the ruins, which in all cases frees up the main character (Darby Camp in all three films) to have an adventure with either Santa Claus or a big red dog. It's clear that screenwriters don't know what to do with parents, or they know that all the fun happens when they're somewhere else, thus the circumstances need to be created to keep the parents away from the main story. It's really appalling how neglectful all of these parents seem to be. After all, what could POSSIBLY go wrong while these helicopter mothers aren't watching their own children?
It's also clear that they rushed this sequel into production, since it came out just two years later, and there were obvious notes for what aspects of the first film needed to be emphasized. More of Mrs. Claus, for one thing. Also, Santa needed a nemesis, and you can't really use the devil, so the writers created this renegade elf, who uses an herb to drive all the other elves crazy, and they become tiny demonic monster-like elves, which also creates another side-quest, where Jack has to go on a journey to find the only flower near the North Pole that can counteract the crazy-elf herb. Meanwhile Kate and Santa go off to challenge Belsnickel, who puts a device on Santa's sleigh that sends them back in time, to Boston's Logan Airport in 1990, a notorious place that was devoid of Christmas Spirit. Don't worry, Santa can solve anything with a song, if only he hadn't left his back-up band in jail back in 2018. Insert Darlene Love as a stressed out airline employee who can sing the big musical number with Santa and make everything OK.
Also meanwhile, Kate meets a teen boy at the airport who makes her feel better about Christmas and spending time with her family (old and new) and it's kind of her "Back to the Future" moment, if you get my drift. So again you have to wonder if Santa was really stranded back in the past by accident, or if he took Kate there for a reason and a life lesson. OK, so it's "Back to the Future" mixed with "It's a Wonderful Life" and a bit of "A Christmas Carol", those all involved time traveling to learn about the past in order to change the future, it's the same idea here, just done in a different way.
I know the attempt here was to build on the success of the first "Christmas Chronicles" film and then just expand the universe and the mythology a bit, but there's almost TOO much going on here, too many new elements added to Santa's story, and the first film really just polished up the story that we all knew, modernized it a little, but this whole thing with the evil elf and the Star of Bethlehem and YuleCats and snow cannons and secret domes, well I think it takes everything just a bit too far, that's all. Some of the magic from the first film is still hanging around, but this one is also all over the place, there's no focus or coherent through-line, it's just a big bunch of random stuff happening.
It's also almost TWO HOURS of chase scenes and holiday nonsense - the tour of Santa's Village is notoriously much longer than it needs to be, for example. The first film was a tight 103 minutes, but this one drags on and on. I haven't got time for a movie this long, because I've got to watch "A Christmas Story" at least twice, and "Bad Santa 2" at least once! Ah, screw it, maybe we'll just watch the "Guardians of the Galaxy" Christmas special again and be done with it, maybe a few episodes of "Holiday Wars", but then that's it. I've got work to do to get ready for my end-of-Movie-Year wrap-up post, too! So Year 15 is over, but I'll be back here in about a week with that post, and hopefully some news about Year 16 starting up.
Also starring Goldie Hawn, Judah Lewis, Kimberly Williams-Paisley (all three also carrying over from "The Christmas Chronicles"), Julian Dennison (last seen in "Godzilla vs. Kong"), Jahzir Bruno (last seen in "The Witches"), Darlene Love (last seen in "20 Feet from Stardom"), Tyrese Gibson (last seen in "Morbius"), Sunny Suljic (last seen in "The Killing of a Sacred Deer"), Patrick Gallagher (last seen in "Street Kings"), Tricia Munford (last seen in "A Single Man"), Christy St. John, Danny Dworkis, Seth Whittaker (last seen in "Crash Pad"), Mario Renato de la Peña Viderique, Anakaren Robles Ruis,
and the voices of Malcolm McDowell (last seen in "Some Kind of Beautiful"), Andrew Morgado (also carrying over from "The Christmas Chronicles"), Jessica Lowe (ditto), Michael Yurchak (ditto), Kari Wahlgren (ditto),
RATING: 5 out of 10 extra verses of "O Christmas Tree".
