fandomfatale

Depressing af with strong anti-Christian sentiment. Just what I look for in a Christmas movie (!)

It's too bad because I think it's a good premise and the characters had promise but this movie was not fun. Production values were fine, it looked fine, acting was good, and I wouldn't call it boring. It was not predictable. So those are all plusses. There were a few nice moments and some laughs buried in this bog of misery but I can't say they were worth it. It also has very little to do with Santa, really, and isn't Christmassy.

I can only imagine what the pitch meeting for this movie looked like. It's hard to picture the studio saying, "OK, but make it sadder" for each new draft of the script, but that must have been what happened. This should have been a comedy, and not a drama with a few jokes. The premise lends itself to a comedy.

I thought, OK, they're taking us really low, to make the uplift at the end even more powerful. Nope. The payoff isn't there, in my opinion.

I don't really have much more to say than that. This was something a little different to break up the Hallmark movies and I laughed and enjoyed myself. There's lots of lovely scenery and a rapid journey through different modes of transportation and winter sports.

The main thing driving the story - his inability to get home - of course makes no sense, but that's made clear from the start. None of it is meant to be taken seriously.

I thought it was funny, and hopefully the kind of people who will enjoy it won't be dissuaded by the low rating. Why is everyone so hard on comedy? I think we need more of it.

This left a bad taste in my mouth. I would have quit before episode 2 but the main reason I watched this was because I'm a fan of Matthew McNulty so I saw it through to the end. He was great at least.

The series had a couple of surprises and I'm not going to call it garbage but the whole thing generally trended towards what I predicted from the beginning, not because I'm so smart or anything, but just because this is the same kind of thing that always happens in shows written with this kind of mindset.

Jenna Coleman is very charismatic and I like her a lot as an actress but even she couldn't make Ember likable. She gets called out sometimes by the other characters but the narrative still always treats her like she's right.

Overall, the writing could have done with a dose, or rather several, of nuance.