The Christmas Pact

2018 was a mixed to unimpressive year for Lifetime Christmas films. There were a few good ones, such as 'Christmas Harmony', 'Santa's Boots' and 'Every Other Holiday'. There were also some real humbugs, such as 'My Christmas Inn', 'Every Day is Christmas' and 'Hometown Christmas'. There are Lifetime Christmas films of all years that fit in both extremes and even more so somewhere in the middle. So expectations were mixed watching 'The Christmas Pact'.

Which turned out to be another one of the films in the humbugs category of Lifetime's 2018 Christmas batch. The idea did sound sweet if predictable, but nowhere near enough is done with it and it is executed in a pretty weak manner. There are a few good things, but the flaws are many and a lot more and the worst aspects are pretty awful. Have seen some good Christmas films over the past few years as part of my completest sake, but 'The Christmas Pact' is on the opposite end.

'The Christmas Pact's' scenery is very attractive and didn't find anything wrong with the photography either.

Jarrod Joseph is an amiable leading man that deserved a better leading lady. The supporting do decently too.

Something that cannot be said for Kyla Pratt, which is like watching anaemic amateur dramatics complete with moments of over-compensating. Am going to have to be another person that really disliked her character Sadie, very annoying from having an over the top negative personality and disconnected from reality and everybody else. She and Joseph have no chemistry together, never believed their love and they didn't look comfortable around each other enough to be believable as friends. The direction goes through the motion and the music has very little character or memorability.

Moreover, the script is like a cobbling together of over-familiar cliches, and then there is the overkill cheesiness and schmaltziness of the awkwardly flowing lines. The story sounded sweet but turned out to be very charmless and bland, not helped by the leaden pacing, the over-seriousness of the tone and how too little content there was to sustain the length. The characters were pretty much standard Lifetime cliches.

In summary, very weak. 3/10.

The Christmas Pact (2018) -

This story was similar to 'Love At The Christmas Table' (2012), but that film definitely did it more justice, with a vibe that felt far warmer.

This one started with the two leads as kids and they were not good actors in those roles, but once it got past the first few "Generations" it definitely improved, because my finger was hovering on the delete button until that point.

Jarod Joseph as Ben was cute and delivered a nice character, but Kyla Pratt in the role of Abby was annoying. However I still found myself routing for them both to get together.

I didn't think that Hannah deserved what she got in the end though. I would have liked her to have been swept away by someone else who would love her properly.

There were some dodgy bits - I couldn't tell if the fake snow was meant to be the characters choice of decoration or if it was meant to be real snow that had settled, but either way it was too obviously fake.

And I thought that as a photographer she should have come up with a better album of pictures than she did. I can create nicer albums than that with an App on my phone.

Overall, it was fine, but it won't be one that I consistently return to, if at all. There are better out there, that are easier to watch again and again and with sexier actors.

4.25/1000.

This was the most cheesy Christmas story I've watched all season. Sadie is annoying and oblivious to the love that there. The wig they put on the best friend male character was ridiculous. I waited for a plot. I waited for a reason to keep watching. Skip this one.

Friends from childhood reunite at Christmas every year. The movie jumps a few years for each new scene, but the idea is the same. And the story has the same continuity issues that all the others stories with this premise have - what takes so long to progress to the next step?

A couple of reviews didn't like Kyla Pratt, but she did well in my view. I liked her character. She and Jarod Joseph had obvious chemistry. In fact, the rival relationships never seemed the least bit real in comparison. I felt sorry for one of the rivals.

No great surprises, but then it's a holiday romance.

Sadie was an annoying whinny character so it made it hard to enjoy her and Bens story.