Navidad en 8 bits

To be brutally frank, it is not so much how good this is, as it is how bad 99 out of 100 X-Mas movies are. Most are produced as part of a strange seasonal production line, pre-sold, profitable before anyone even sees them, and destined to be forgotten by New Years. In contrast this is sharp, witty, sassy, has great timing and the young actors are all self-aware and loving it. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

Some funny lines regarding today's technology generation and they are all true. Good little actors. Great ending! A bit sentimental but that's the whole point! What's missing from this social media generation and the gamers before them is the sentimentality of life (and a work ethic). It's worth a watch.

I suppose this movie was intended to pull the nostalgic heartstrings of Gen Y while they watch it with their kids, but it missed the mark as either a movie about gaming or the 80's. I truly expected this film to be saturated in 80's culture and it was something of a let down.

My husband first noticed that the film had opened with a weird, wishy washy muted colour palette, so he was expecting it to jump into the rad day-glo colours of the 80's once the flashback ensued, but it didn't. There was hardly any vibrancy to this film. Set design was sort of 80's, sort of not, costumery was generic minus a pair of old school gloves and boots. The 80's music selection was comprised of maybe four songs that didn't really fit, and Animation's "Obsession" is played into the ground for comedic effect (it was Fashion Television's theme here in Canada, but anywhere else it's pretty much about sex, kinda weird to play it for a kid wearing boots lol). That's not even getting around to the NES portion of the film, which equally disappoints. It's remastered graphics and fake games were a huge let down!

I grew up on a myriad of consoles so I was drawn to the film for the gaming aspect and what you get is not what we grew up on. It's kind of a slap in the face, really, because they baited us with the promise of 80's gaming culture and what we got could've honestly been any hot toy from any previous decade.

Does the film borrow elements/formula from A Christmas Story? Yes. Do I care? Hardly because I find this more digestible than that movie. It's a cute kids Christmas movie with a moving conclusion. But it should've been way funnier, had the atmosphere of Christmas in the 80's, and actually related to the NES and what it was to be a child gamer in the 80's.

I love the iconic Christmas movies like Home Alone, Elf, the Santa Clause, and even National Lampoon's Christmas vacation. However, this Christmas, I started to get a little tired of seeing the same movies over the last 10-20 years. The problem was, there hasn't been a recent Christmas movie of any quality in the last decade....until now. The movie feels a lot like a current "Christmas Story", but instead of the Red Rider, the lead tells the story of his childhood pursuit of a Nintendo. High quality child actors mixed with a classic, yet current feel. It was cute and wish they would put more out like it.

It's rare nowadays to have a Christmas film not afraid to be sentimental, as dumb critics and cynics tend to criticize films for following Christmas sentiment. I enjoyed the film and was happy it borrowed from A Christmas Story, not ripped it off.