Christmas Cupid

OK guys, let's face it. It's December, snow is falling and although we're stressed out, we want to relax and get into a Christmas mood. So we lean back and switch on "Christmas Cupid" in hope for a bit silly, but watchable movie.

I'm sorry I have to stop you right here. This movie is bad from the beginning to the end. The acting is dreadful, not in one million years do I buy the businesswoman on "the fast track". The storyline is somewhat incoherent, yet unforgivably predictable. Yes, we have all watched romantic comedies with a predictable ending, but this one has got to be one of the worst. Even calling it a "comedy" does it too much honour. The take on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" was nicely thought, but horribly executed. Not to mention, that there was no cupid in the movie whatsoever.

This is not a movie I'd recommend for you to watch during Christmas time (or anytime, actually). Better go with some old classics, that'll really get you ready for the holidays!

Teens who want a relatable version of A Christmas Carol will flock to Christmas Cupid, starring the popular teen star from Pretty Little Liars, Ashley Benson. Ashley is the Jacob Marley to Christina Milian's Scrooge, and she visits her coworker to impart some life lessons before it's too late. As you can tell from the title, the main focus is love and finding Christina's happiness with another person, rather than just enjoying the Christmas spirit. But this is a teen movie - do you really expect it not to focus on boys, boys, boys?

Parts of it were cute, but it's really just geared to teenage girls. Diehard fans of the Dickens story will probably be appalled. Just as classic lovers should stay away from All American Christmas Carol, they should probably stay away from Christmas Cupid. But if you just like pretty girls in pretty dresses, giggling over which boy to kiss under the mistletoe, check out this festive comedy. You'll see some familiar faces, like Jackée, Burgess Jenkins, and Ashley Johnson.

The basic sin - it is a film about nothing. Not "nothing" in Seinfeld manner but just not specific subject or genre or story. A sort of salad , using a selfish, collectionary of men business woman, a sort of spirit more becoming angel, crumbs from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens , a single mother, ex-boyfriends and a lot of improvisation in not very inspired way. The good thing, maybe, the presence of Chad Michael Murray for nostalgics. But it is not enough to save this presumed film about Christmas.

This film essentially begins with a self-centered marketing executive by the name of "Sloane Spencer" (Christina Milian) doing everything she can to advance her personal agenda in order to obtain a promotion in her advertising firm. This even includes sleeping with her boss "Andrew Craig" (Burgess Jenkins) in the hope that he will reciprocate by endorsing her for a vacated vice-president position over her main rival "Jason Miller" (Ryan Sypek). Making this rivalry even more personal is the fact that Sloane had also been sleeping with him prior to her climb up the company ladder. Even so, it soon becomes obvious that, in order for her to win this promotion, she has to make the company look good during an upcoming movie premiere starring her a popular actress named "Caitlin Quinn" (Ashley Benson) who has become the firm's primary client. The problem, however, is that Caitlin seems to have an uncanny knack for attracting extremely bad publicity--as she careens from one outrageous scandal to another. Yet just when it seems things couldn't get worse, Caitlin dies while dancing at a wild party right before the big event. Not only that, but to make matters even worse, Sloane is subsequently visited by the ghost of Caitlin who advises her that three other ghosts will soon arrive with a warning that she needs to change her ways--before it's too late. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an okay remake of the Charles Dickens' story "A Christmas Carol" written about 175 years earlier. Yet despite the attempt to refurbish it as a comedy under modern circumstances, it doesn't quite succeed in delivering the same effect. And even though both Ashley Benson and Chad Michael Murray (as Sloane's ex-boyfriend "Patrick Kerns") performed reasonably well, it wasn't enough to compel me to rate this film any higher than I have. Average.

No spoilers here unless you're unfamiliar with A Christmas Carol, as this thing, um TV movie, is an attempted retelling. What we have here are actors who are either unskilled or wholly uninspired(and if so, no one can blame them). They mostly sleepwalk through a soul-less, shallow, Christmas Carol in which Scrooge learns to become slightly less selfish, morally bankrupt, and generally horrible to the mostly equally horrible people in her life. Instead of feeding the poor and starving, our Scrooge here redeems herself by feeding celebrities via gift certificates to a restaurant . Really. The best part of the movie is when Jacob Marley/Cupid makes her grand final exit. I was laughing, though the scene was intended to be grand and touching. Redeeming qualities? Well, hmm. OK, the cast are pretty much all eye candy. The lighting and camera work were fine for a TV movie. And I give it points for making me laugh for feeling like the bad boyfriend dodged a bullet while the good guy got stuck with a lifetime of misery. All in all, no Christmas spirit to be found here, and not much of a cupid. I think they called it Christmas Cupid because Christmas Stupid was too honest.