USS Christmas

Pleasant viewing.

'USS Christmas' isn't anything extraordinary, but it produces what it intended to - a cutesy Xmas story. It's well set up, with the naval surroundings adding a touch of freshness to the usual festive film formula. Jen Lilley and Trevor Donovan have satisfactory chemistry, with the likes of Brett Rice and Keith Flippen support adequately.

6/10 - following the new trend of mixing a new and old romance, this Hallmark flick is pleasing if forgettable

I was in the Navy, so I noticed quite a few things that weren't exactly accurate, not the least of which was the sister Navy flyer proudly showing off her plane which clearly said "Marines" on it. Well, he did teach her to go down a ladder correctly. The story itself was ok, if typical Hallmark. You know how it ends before it even starts, so the rest is a ride you choose to take. Always like Jen Lilley, she's very pretty, but somehow two hours of her is enough. The chemistry was a little iffy, I thought. This is not the best Hallmark movie this year, but it's not the worst either, and anything beats the news in 2020...!

There is a cute little Walt Disney book titled "Button Soup" It is a 1975 Disney's Wonderful World of Reading storybook featuring Daisy Duck and Scrooge McDuck. In this book, Daisy tricks her stingy Uncle Scrooge into making enough soup for the whole town -- using just one button.

Using a similar approach to the Disney book "Button Soup" a pretty writer named Maddie Contino (Jen Lilley) begrudgingly agrees to go on what's called a Tiger Cruise with her mother Elizabeth (Barbara Niven). A Tiger Cruise allows a naval officer to take their family to work and in this case Maddie's sister is stationed as a fighter pilot named Lt. Amelia Breslin (Stefanie Butler) on a ship. Lt. Amelia Breslin, her sister Maddie, and their mom Elizabeth receive a dinner invitation from the ship's captain who invites his own son, Lt. Billy Jenkins (Trevor Donovan) to join them for dinner and reminisce about Christmas's past when the ships Captain Chet Jenkins (Brett Rice) used to work alongside Maddie and Amelia's father who is now deceased. As Captain Jenkins discusses the very first Tiger Cruise he lights a spark in Maddie's desire to write about a long forgotten romance of a couple who first met on that very first Tiger cruise.

Captain Jenkins assigns his good looking fighter pilot son Billy to assist Maddie in researching her story by accessing the ships archives, and Billy initially wants nothing to do with Maddie's research or with the Christmas spirit. But as luck would have it, with every stone Maddie over turns (just like in the 1975 Disney book Button Soup) she draws the unwilling Billy closer and closer into the research and into falling in love with one another.

Maddie and Billy's research leads to good things happening which I don't want to divulge and ruin it for any interested viewers but suffice to say the story took a lot of hard work, push and pull, and convincing but all works out in the end for all parties.

I give USS Christmas a decent 7 out of 10 IMDB rating.

Although he starts out quite gruff at the beginning, it's easy to see how he mellows throughout the film, thus proving that Trevor Donovan is not only gorgeous, but a good actor too. I've seen a lot of these films lately and quite often the actors haven't been able or directed to get this change from "Grinch" to "Santa" to flow naturally and as a result they have seemed highly unlikely to have that crucial change of heart that the formula of every Made For TV Christmas Film demands and some of them are just downright horrible. She annoyed me a bit though, I'd have dragged him off to a room alone somewhere after the first meeting.

It's a cute story, although it is just a variation on the theme, but it is nice to see a different setting this time, even if they do still end up in New York. The idea of a Navy ship was clever and they didn't go over the top with the "We must honour our troops" thing.

I may be biased because Trevor looked so good in uniform and in Black Tie, but I did like this one and I look forward to watching it again next Christmas preferably before February, but there are so many to watch aren't there.