The Christmas Tree

Never watching this thing again. Absolute garbage. This thing was so cheaply made that it's mainly just a slideshow of bad drawings with a narrator talking in the background. The voice acting was terrible. One of the kids was actually impossible to understand, because they evidently just recorded a little girl blabbering on about who knows what.

The adult actors are terrible as well. Their voice acting shows a severe lack of emotion. In one scene, a child goes missing, and when said child's mother finds out, her tone of voice says "Oh well. Could have been worse"

And the plot... let's not go there.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS, NOT THAT ANYONE WILL READ THIS REVIEW OR SEE THIS FILM:

I just saw The Nostalgia Critic's review of this made-for-TV animated "Christmas" movie, just published on Christmas day, 2013! It is probably the one and only review this "Christmas" movie ever got. I put "Christmas" in quotations in that, except for a brief fly-over by Santa Claus where he nearly electrocutes the bad guy and magically gives orphans new clothes (all of which takes less than 30 seconds), Christmas is never mentioned. There was an army of animators for this film, which is curious because it is so badly done, and the script (if you can call it that) absolutely did not merit the time and effort it took to make this. I have no doubt the TV stations that aired it were angry about what it must have done to their ratings. It completely misses the spirit of Christmas, and desperate to wrap things up at the end, the narrator says "and so as you can see, you always win when you're good". Uh, what? There's about 2,000 years of history to contradict that.

I feel bad for the animators that put so much effort into producing something so forgettable and irrelevant; I wonder what they thought about it? We will never know, as there are no other reviews for it, and no information about it is available. You will be wasting your time and inflicting considerable pain on yourself if you see this 45 minute film, but you will at least have fun watching The Nostalgia Critic tear it apart. There is so much wrong with this film, that it took him over 30 minutes just to point it all out, which is almost as long as the film! If you want a Christmas animated special, "The Christmas Tree" isn't it. Not that it matters, as it isn't available anywhere; which is perhaps how it should be (alright, you can find it on YouTube; which is probably the only thing saving it from extinction).

Christmas Tree is about orphaned kids trying to save a tree while under the care of a ruthless and greedy caretaker.

Acting - The worst group of acting of any animated movie PERIOD. The acting children are so inconsistent you wonder if they had drunk in the casting department. One sounds like they just learn how to talk, one kid sounds like they are from outer space, and one sounds like an adult. One kid you can barely understand. The actor of the father is the worst of the bunch. None of them show no emotion or effort except the caretaker Mrs. Mavilda can show too much emotion.

Sometimes you wonder if they had a director since the direction is bad and lazy

The animation is terrible and many of the aspects is terrible and can be quite creepy.

Is this movie good? Not by ANY means! It's horrible - poorly animated, poorly acted - but holy horse hooves if it's not entertaining.

My partner and I play this every Christmas while we set up our Christmas tree and make fun of how bad it is every year. That being said, it's kind of charming in that aspect. I look at this film as a comedy. If you go in with that mindset, you'll laugh your butt off.

If you go in expecting a Christmas classic, you'll be horribly disappointed. But if you go in expecting a bad animated film, you'll be delighted. It's hilarious and something to enjoy as a nice background film.

With the right execution, a combination of an animation based around Christmas could have worked out well. Unfortunately with The Christmas Tree, the execution was just wrong and it didn't work out at all. The animation is, like the three terrible animated Titanic movies, terribly static, the character designs will leave kids traumatised, there is no fluidity(and little movement, for that matter), it looks very sparse and the colours are completely flat. The synthesised music is just as creepy as the character designs, has no warmth to it and for personal tastes doesn't fit at all. The dialogue is very corny and tired, further disadvantaged by the sloppy lip-synching(find a moment where the dialogue actually matches the lip movements actually). Every bit as bad is the voice acting, which is just as bad as the voice acting for the Video Brinquedo animations, which has some of the worst voice acting in all mankind. Monotone, garbled and wooden has been described, and those three words sum the voice acting up brilliantly, if there has been worse voice acting for children in any animation(film, show or special) I've yet to hear it. You don't identify with the characters one bit, they have dull or obnoxious personalities and how they're animated and voice further accentuate that, the titular character is almost completely sidelined. And the story screams of laziness, mean-spirited instead of heart-warming, dull instead of thrilling and full of padding that has no relevance whatsoever to what's happening in the first place. Admittedly the idea wasn't a particularly great or original one to begin with, but if The Christmas Tree was watchable at least that wouldn't have mattered. So in conclusion, as bad as has been said, even worse than Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, Legend of Frosty the Snowman, Star Wars Holiday Special and Frosty Returns(Night B4 Christmas I remember hating as well). A disgrace to animation and you won't feel festive watching it. 1/10 Bethany Cox