Christmas Land

5.9 stars.

'Christmas Land' is a story about nothing. A woman inherits a cool Christmas village that she used to enjoy as a child. Her grandmother ran the place, what sort of place, we really don't know. It's like an amusement park, but mainly just a bunch of little shops and stuff. I guess this is the place for people all around to come for Christmas to get into the spirit of the season. But the place has been rundown for a while, I suppose grandma couldn't maintain it near the end of her life and then she passed away and gave the town to her granddaughter. Granddaughter doesn't really want the place, but the people of the town are hoping she will reignite the magic of Christmas Land. You can guess what transpires, the monumental mistakes that are made, and the "evil" real estate mogul that interferes, and eventually how this ends, but you would be wrong. Not my favorite, far from it.

It is a Xmas movie, right? How the heck do they have an immoral, greedy real estate developer come out a huge winner? On top of that they put him (Mason) in a major scene with townspeople and it is all smiles. When they should have been running him out of town tarred and feathered.

How Mason became a 'winner' is nonsensical. It calls for signing a million dollar+ contract with a 'stranger' and without reading it.

Two weeks to renovate a run down Christmas Land and all we see is a single purchase of a few cans of paint. Voila, it is magically as great looking as in years gone by.

Did you know that a coffee can,not even a large one, cannot hold hundreds of thousands of dollars? Finally, our 'hero' attorney can not come up with a single creative approach to help nail greedy, immoral Mason.

This is not quite up to middling Hallmark Xmas movie standards (low enough anyway) but I wasn't as outraged at the ending as many others (perhaps because I read the spoilers first?) Enjoyable for 70 minutes or so and nonsensical for the rest, but I'm not going to complain.

Maureen McCormick (the Grandmother) and Nikki DeLoach really do look a like. Knowing Maureen in her younger years as Marcia Brady helps us see the resemblance. This is what I really liked about this movie. It is written well except not to much romance or connection between the two main characters but it's still well written and worth watching.

The ending of Christmasland is extremely offensive to women and make women out to be stupid and unaware of their legal rights. The female lead is supposed to be a savvy person living and surviving in a big city not some backwoods hillbilly. The ending of this movie leaves her in debt by $1.3 million dollars on property she owned free and clear one week before. Idiotic! If I were in her shoes, I would have brought a friend with me to confront that attorney boyfriend about his collusion with that real estate developer so I would have had a witness. Then I would have hired a great real estate attorney and sued them both then reported the ex-boyfriend/attorney to the State Bar. I love the Hallmark Christmas movies but this one was pathetic!