cjleigh-00339

I assumed this was a new movie until I looked it up. I must have missed it previously. It's thoroughly enjoyable - unrealistic, it's true, but most movies are unrealistic. That's why we watch them - escapism - and if I'm going to see unrealistic fiction I like it to be happy and have some good music and a couple of cute kids who, of course, are wiser than the adults. This movie has all of that. Maybe the villains - the record company man and the actor - could have been nastier but we end up hating them anyway. I could have done without the 'camp' assistant in his pink jacket but I guess there has to be one. I struggled to decide whether Shannon Elizabeth did her own singing or not. If she did, Hallmark really missed an opportunity by not producing a Mistletoe over Manhattan soundtrack album. A Christmas Cracker!

I had so enjoyed the first two movies in this series that I bought a US DVD so I could watch it before its wider release. I really like Bea Santos and Greyson Holt and the first movie, particularly had a real spark to it. Sadly, the third one doesn't. It leans quite heavily on the awful 'Cake' which seems to tilt it towards being a comedy, while the introduction of the bereaved Grandfather takes it in the opposite direction. Raven Stewart is cute as ever, and now she can sing, too, but Bea Santos didn't seem to have her heart in it at all, which was the real disappointment because she was so great in the first two. Perhaps she recognised that the theme has run its course. My betting is that there won't be a forth one, however much we fans might have wished for it but I look forward to seeing Bea in something that stretches her undoubted talent next time and may that be soon.