My Christmas film viewings over-time have been a very mixed bag. With some surprisingly good hits, where regardless of how predictable they are succeed in being full of charm, warmth and heart so succeeding in being light-hearted and undemanding fun. But also some quite big misses, where the characters are not likeable, everything is forced and shallow with implausibility too in some of the worst cases, the acting and writing being weak and basically with just nothing to them.
'A Christmas Tail' is not one of the worst Christmas films recently seen, a long way from being that. It is also though nowhere near being one of the best, and is closer to being in the lesser category. Is 'A Christmas Tail' terrible? No, it didn't insult my intelligence, was well intended and it had its moments. At the same time, it is really not particularly good at all with many things wrong with it. Things that even when taking it for what it is and taking into account the target audience are very difficult to overlook.
Shall start with the good. The dog Chilly is absolutely adorable and fun to watch, definitely the most likeable character. Am not a huge fan of C Thomas Howell, who has done a lot of bad films and performances but when he is in the right roles with good material (i.e. George Foyet on 'Criminal Minds') he is very good. He does a good, amiable job here and is easily the best actor here, being the one to give the only halfway decent performance in the film.
The soundtrack has some nice nostalgic moments. Some of the story is cute.
However, the rest of the cast don't work. Do agree that one of the worst aspects of 'A Christmas Tail' is the acting of the children, which is pretty much overdone mugging. Tom Arnold is also on autopilot in a cartoonish role and it was like he was doing somebody a favour and not at his own will, that may likely not be the case in real life but Arnold's acting here comes over that way. Very few of the characters are that interesting or have much that makes one endeared to them, other than Chilly and Howell's character they're all stale caricatures. There really was not that much of a script and all the dialogue sounds like bad corny improvisation, especially with the children.
Low budget is evident in the visuals as there was a very rushed look throughout, especially in the flat and quite haphazard photography. The story is also thin as near melted ice and has no real charm or heart, moments of cuteness aside, just non-stop cheesiness, excessive schmaltz, convenient contrivances and an erratic pace. There could have been a chance to slightly overlook the predictability but the other story problems are far less easy to forgive. The odd pleasant moment aside, the music generally is forgettable at best.
Overall, mediocre. 4/10.
