Reviews

If you liked Indian Jones, National Treasure, or The Mummy and Hallmark Christmas movies then this'll be right up your ally.

Need I say more, well the 600 minimum character counter says yes.

The movie is repleat with clearly ridiculous clues leading to more poorly hidden clues that 100% would have been found years before now. All wrapped up with a silly bit of made up lore and hidden treasure mythology.

And filled with classic cheesy hallmark dialogue and a standard happy ending.

The acting is great from the leads and not terrible from the supporting cast. Not surprising as Lacey is a veteran of these now.

All in all, very niche in its target audience and nothing spectacular, but worth a watch if it's your niche.

Great cast; Lacey Chabert, Katy Mixon Greer, Joe Lo Truglio, Craig Robinson.

The latter two make it feel a bit like a Brooklyn 99 spin off. In fact I'm convinced Craig is just playing Dug Judie again, and Joe is just playing Boyle with a moustache.

Early on there is a lovely little Easter Egg with a shot from Falling For Christmas on the TV, with Lindsay Lohan in it, to which Laceys Character says "weird, that looks like someone I went to high school with".

There are plenty of other little Easter Egg scattered throughout for the other Netflixe Christmas movies of their ever expanding Christmas movie universe. Which are turning out to be fun and a real rival to Hallmarks corner on the market of Christmas romance movies.

The random women just thirsting hard for Jack is hilarious. Everything is over the top and silly. Perfect for a Christmas movie.

All in all its frivolous fun and enjoyable.

This one is not nearly as fun as the last one and has a much darker undertone of mob mentally being swayed by celebrity's. Yes it's a Christmas movie so it does have a happy ending, eventually.

I get that's the point. But it's a sharp contrast to the last one which was a lot more fun throughout and being part of a community.

Also when do the Johnsons sleep. They Do sooo much and get everywhere so quickly. I just don't get it.

This sequel is not the worst, but it's definitely not the best. And we'll worth a skip if you liked the first one.

It does get s lot more light hearted and fun, but not until about the last 20min or so.

This is the HOA of of people on the spectrum and you can't convince me otherwise.

Ned is the greatest, loved him.

It is completely over the top, it's clearly a spoof of other similar movies, you all know the ones.

The romance is a bit forced, and the main plot is a bit contrived. Seriously she'd in reality just tell the HOA to sit and swivel and go to a hotel. But the movie wouldn't be nearly as fun, or as long.

And it is a fun movie. They did a great job of making the characters obnoxious and annoying to start with, and then turning it around to make almost all of them be liked and make me invested in them.

I get that it's the point and the premis, but the lies on lies the characters keep telling. And the tons of opportunities they had to come clean. The dragging out of this is incredibly stress inducing and anxiety triggering.

Done watch this if second hand social embarrassment is a big problem for you in moves (like it is for me)

And that sister. Is the worst character ever. She starts the whole thing and then dumps it on Brooke, while she gets to keep living and acting as her true self. Which is also just exasperating.

And the thread of their heritage, which kicks off the trip, comes up just twice and then has a very confusing resolution, why was just one sibling put up for adoption? So all their fathers siblings live in Ireland but he was adopted out in the 70s??

I don't get that.

This is a Christmas move with a plot more reminiscent of dirty dancing.

As someone who did a lot of dancing years ago, there were many bits that just annoyed me, but I suspect unless you were a dancer, they won't bother most people as they probably won't spot things.

On the subject of plot, it's pretty straigh forward. But the speed she moves on from her wedding being canned 20 day out, to falling in for someone. And she learns the main dance with less than 10hrs of lessons.

The Fiancé is a complete ass hat, but that's standard in these movies, but he really is spectacularly terrible and very unbelievable.

An ok Christmas movie. Not hallmarks best through.

This also might be one of most egregious example of a winter movie being shot in summer.

That being said, it's still fun. Had a weird murder mystery feel. Like a cross between an Agatha Chrsity and I know what you did last summer. But the mystery turns out not to have been a murder.

All with a romance running through it.

And the actual reason they were all brought together is realy contrived, and doesn't realy hold up to logic.

And I'm am stunned at the number of people who get an invite to a hotel and take it without actual checking if it's real or who it came from.

All the best hits of a Hallmark Christmas movie.

An out of the way old small town replete with "Old World values", them actual saying "we don't like by the clocks here". Everyone knowing Everyone. City slicker doesn't know how to be self reliant so relies on the only handyman/delivery man/contractor/tow truck driver in the town, whoes also the broody single type, but with big plans. And finally, city slikers skills help competition to save local business.

Now there's nothing wrong with these. It's how there implemented, executed, and acted.

And here they work.

Formulaic, sure, but fun and sappy, definitely.

A perfect winter wonderland movie.

An interesting twist on the classic. And it's nice to see it gender flipped as to some of the characters.

It's not a terrible movie by any stretch, but it dosemt quite hit the mark as a reimagining. It's taken some of the elements and re shuffled them to make a reasonable Christmas movie. But what it ends up doing is reminding me of the original which will always be the superior while not quite being as good.

But, don't take that as daming indictment it's not bad. And actually quite enjoyable.

I would have liked it to have done a quick rap at the end, maybe circling back to that guy and his some from the beginning with Darcy and her new position helping them out, or something like that.

Well that was a surprise, the first act set up of this felt strong. Laceys Character is a strong successful career woman. Not mean or putting other down others, infact she specifically acknowledged her assistant for finding a story in a group meeting. It's played as her being a power hungry boss as she plans of being the on site reporter for the story, but that's literally her job.

The premis of the story is a little stressful, especially the life she has. I was stressed out just trying to stay ontop of her daily jobs. And the implications of now being a mum of 2 kids that you'd never seen before and have no connection to is stressful for her and the kids.

I was worried it was going to resolve itself by having her chose that life in the end, undoing her actual achievements and making it a weird relatuonship for the kids. But thankfully they didn't do that.

I'm not a massive fan of the premis that women can't have successful careers and a good family life that hallmark movies often seem to portray, but this one throws in a few lines to try to mitigate this, saying that her specific job leaves no room for anything else.

It is also one of the better acted and directed hallmark movies I've seen in a while. And that helps paper over a lot.

Mariah Carey tries and I think misses in this one. It's not the worst, but Mariah Carey actually acts in this one to, and she's terrible, but hilariously so. Some really weird close ups and very weird, wooden dialogue from her.

And the Fulgers product placement might be the most egregious I've seen since Wayns World. Like seriously it looks like a scene straight from an advertisement at one point.

And the finally felt like they were trying to copy love actually ending, the school play scene. And I'm guessing Mariah wrote that song especially for it so as not to feel too similar, but still it felt like the movie was written just to get to this scene. But the vibe felt too put of place for that one scene.

And the "best friend " is objectively the worst.

And finally for negatives, this one really Ham fisted the plot line to get Laceys Character to stay in her small town. It really felt like the message is, women can't have carers and a family, and they should choose family.

On the up side, Lacey Chabert and Brennan Elliott realy do a great job with limited resources. As do the rest of the cast. Of special not Is a 10 yeae old Fina Strazza who did a great job.

Not the worst, just forced and wooden in places, and watching Mariah is like watching a car crash, I couldn't look away.

Standard classic story line of Christmas spirit in a small town that conquers a greedy bank manager.

There is a romance storyline running through this too, although it feels forced. And frankly it felt like Molly had more chemistry and a better fleshed out story with her boss and daughters than the actual love interest.

The bank manager is played almost comically evil and anti Christmas. It almost felt like he was in a different movie than the rest of the cast. I can't tell if that was on purpose or not. It's probably why his son, the love interest, felt so flat. Straddling both parts of the move.

Yet again the US just doesn't quite manage to portray royals properly. They try to pad things out with cheap looking sets and costumes (their inability to use cummerbuns correctly was driving My Wife crazy). And as always it's the fun loving American that "break the mould " and shatters stuff upper lip of the royal household staff.

I think this is the same "castle" location later used for A Christmas Prince, which follows an almost identical plot and I think is the better version if this story premise.

That being the case, it's still fun, and inoffensive. Worth the watch and a perfectly serviceable Christmas movie.

If you remember watching the power rangers in 90s and thought... you know there was to much fighting and monsters, I just want more of those collage scenes and I loved that cheesy, goofy acting, the over the top steryotypes and dialogue, i wish there was a Christmas move like that..... Then do I have a movie recommendation for you.

If not then probably stay away. The racial stereotypes have aged like fine milk, infact they were probably not great even then.

The target audience for this is very much early teens in the late 90s early 2000s. Unfortunately it came out 10 years to late for that window.

I've seen YouTube videos with better acting, dialogue, and sets.

That being said, Lacey Chabert is by far and away the best actor here. She carries this no question. And I can appreciate the idea and plan for this movie, just the execution fell down. If they'd have scrapped the romance and set this with kids, you'd have a fun kids Christmas movie.

This has all the hallmark cliches: an inattentive boyfriend who's work obsessed, a hunky new love interest who loves his family and also does wood carvings, a small out of the way town overly obsessed with Christmas, an important town Christmas cookie sale saved by our protagonist, a mall Santa who is 100% the real deal, and a hotel run by a kooky older woman which only has one room left with only one bed to share.

And the characters all seem to know it too and lean into it, which add to the charm.

It's fun, and sweet, everything you could want from a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Only down side it it just seemed to end really suddenly.

They have taken some liberties with the material in terms of adaptation. But on the whole I can see why. There is just too much in the books to translate it all. Season 1 was pretty weak in a lot of places and ended mostly with a lot of confusion as to why the show runner had done what they did. Season 2 has tried to pick up from there and it's taken a bit, but by episode 5 it's all mostly back on track, lining up and progressing well. The Aiel are everything I hoped for, the Emonds Field Five are very book accurate and have been giving some phenomenal performances, as have Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney as Moraine and Lan.

With my pick of MVP for S2 being Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin.

Book changes I'm OK with: I get why they have done to Moraine what they did at the end of Season 1, because otherwise in book terms her character would be off screen this whole time and it's a waste of the actor and the character. I get why Perrin had a wife, it gives somthing to replace the massive amount of inner dialog he has in the books.

Book changes in not yet OK with: There are a few choices I'm still unsure of, the Seanchan damane having dummies is a very weird stylistic choice that I'm still not sold on. It looks like they might be combining two book characters Elaida and Liandrin, and I don't think that's a good idea.

Barely any actual fact, and their gratuitously misrepresented, cherry picked, and warped to fit a narrative that is just tin foil hat level conspiracy theory.