statetax

One really has to wonder what the professional reviewers are really thinking. We looked over the family movie list and barely decided to go to this one based on lackluster reviews. Six out of six of us REALLY liked it and found it deep and entertaining, and easy to watch. By all means, if you are looking to enjoy a movie, go see this one.

If you are looking for a connection to the original story, the connection happens during the first 45 minutes and then seems to go in its own direction. Big deal. The movie moves through characters development, plot lines, and geographies smoothly, and does not reveal its final hand until the end.

Regardless of the critics, this movie has become one of my top five Christmas movies--we watch it every year.

To start with, I dislike TV movies. The budget is low. The acting is somewhat cliché. So they ripped off parts of Ground Hogs Day. The storyline in Ground Hogs Day was so shallow and irrelevant that it needed to be done over.

Christmas Do Over resonates with one basic truth--that each of us must get up everyday and try and improve on the previous one. Except in this one, he keeps waking up to a Christmas disaster of his own making. Its real. It moves. It teaches. It is squeaky clean. Its awkward. It feels good. The story has so much potential that I wish they could do it over with more money. I don't mind the actors, but it could have been done better. I would rewrite certain parts like the Christmas fair. Who goes to a Christmas fair on Christmas. But it worked into their characterizations and plot.

Notwithstanding the flaws, the movie is a hidden gem and everyone should see this movie. At least once. A year.

We did our homework. We watched the previews. This movie looked really interesting. The overall storyline wasn't bad, and frankly they had a pretty good group of talent to work with. This movie should have worked. But a script writer decided that he was going to pack this tale with imaginable left-wing hot button, and the story meandered between a comedy and a drama and lost it development amid the gay couples, gay adoption, interracial couples, shacking up, pre-marital sex, hearing disabilities, breast cancer, native American art, drugs, and alcohol. After we left the movie, we tried to make sense of the character development and the storyline. It really is a shame because with some script rework, a new director, a little recasting, this could have been a masterpiece.

We sat there waiting and waiting for a movie to entertain and it never did happen. We read the flowering reviews and had several friends give it their highest recommendations. We expected an incredible movie. We have graduate degrees. Are 45. Have five kids. High IQs. I acknowledge that from a technical standpoint the movie has merits. But when it was finished, we were glad. I am not sure I would even recommend renting the video when it comes out. The scene upon which the movie starts is the opening night of a play. The playwright--Johnny Depp--watches the audience from behind the curtains as they drift off into boredom. Soon, the rain outside the set begins to pour onto and drence the audience, presumably symbolizing the failure of the play to entertain. Frankly, this scene is prophetic of the movie overall.