Christmas Festival of Ice

Emma made it through 7 years of school and studying for the Bar Exam and now is back home in time for the Christmas Festival. The scenery is great. It is clearly set in the winter.

We have a Christmas Tree farm, but outside from the beautiful sculptures, there isn't much other Christmas-y stuff. There is a "tragic" backstory with our hero that he needs to get over in order to enjoy the holidays. Didn't really see the chemistry between the two, though.

Ending doesn't sit right with me. Another reviewer called it "First World Problems". This is not a movie I would have my teenage daughter see without pointing out all the things the heroine did wrong, presumably with her parents money.

IMDb gives away a little too much in the Storyline. But I was probably not paying enough attention to the clues about Emma's feelings. I was thinking that Taylor Cole's acting was off in how she was almost irresponsible in her lack of attention to her mom's legal practice. In reality Cole did a good job of showing that her attitude toward law was complicated. The other acting was OK, but I can't say Joey Belfiore was overly convincing in courting Emma. Neither Emma nor Jason made it seem that their romance was highest on their minds.

The story had a small mystery which I thought had a nice solution. There was also a little twist, maybe less so if you paid attention.

For a Christmas movie, I thought it was a little lacking in the usual piling on of Christmas traditions because it was more focused on the ice sculpture.

Actually liked the idea of the story, which had a setting that set itself apart from a lot of Hallmark's festive efforts. Even if it still sounded formulaic, which is pretty much what one expects from Hallmark anyway. The title was quite cute, refraining too much from being too cheesy like film titles from Hallmark can be in game attempts to be cute and catchy. Have liked Taylor Cole in a few other things, though she is a relatively new actress to me, so she was not inexperienced in this type of role.

One would think though that she was if judging her performance in 'Christmas Festival of Ice' without seeing some of her other films beforehand. 'Christmas Festival of Ice' as an overall film is not awful and it has its moments. There are also far worse Hallmark Christmas films as well as worse Christmas films in general. On the most part, to me it was not a good film, does very little with its potential and basically should have been much better.

'Christmas Festival of Ice's' best aspect is the acting, which is mostly acceptable and even good. The best performance coming from Wendy Crewson, who brings vitality and heart to her role and the film. Damon Runyan is an engaging enough male lead, the character is cliched but Runyan at least doesn't look bored or ill at ease. The second best aspect is the production values, which are also quite good. Lovely festive locations slickly shot.

The music has its moments, it sounds Christmassy and some of the choices of soundtrack have a nice nostalgia. The film starts off quite well.

However, Cole didn't work for me. She seemed rigid and like her heart wasn't in it, things that have not been there in some of her other performances. She and Runyan have very little chemistry together, almost disconnected and under-rehearsed, which made it very hard to invest in the romance which never properly develops. Very few of the characters are likeable or interesting, Nick and Carol are minor exceptions and that is because of Runyan and Crewson's acting skills rather than the character writing.

Moreover, the script is very cheesy and soapy with a very stop-start flow to it. The story is as thin as black ice (sorry) and crawls along at a snail's pace, so the film feels very dull. As well as not easy to take seriously, while the ending on top of being too convenient strains credibility beyond the limit. The music has moments but has the problems that a lot of Hallmark festive films have in being used too much and being too loud.

Concluding, very lacklustre but with sporadic good things. 4/10

I give this film a 5 just for the fact that it was filmed in Mississippi Mills - in the winter! People actually looked cold and are wearing real winter clothes and boots, no high heels in sight. OMG. As for the plot, it's just as silly as every 2nd Hallmark film - you know, where they give up their careers to move to the small town to work in businesses that don't actually exist anymore because they make no money in today's world. I am still waiting for the one where someone moves to the city for a job...you know, reality! But no, it's Hallmark so don't expect more. Just chill out and enjoy the beautiful scenery in this one.

In Sci-Fi movies, we know that some things will never happen, but we think of them as believable. In Christmas Festival of Ice, the first thing that we did not understand in why 5 blocks of ice cost that much money. Did they pay judges, pay sculptors? Did they pay prize money and would it have to be that much? We have people in our town that would pay to be part of a holiday ice sculpting contest, not have to be paid. It is hard to get around that money raising scheme logic since it is the major part of the movie.