pretzelsnyder

This movie is simultaneously enraging and not worth thinking about. At first you're hopeful, because it seems to be trying to blend the "newer" films with the first two and somehow streamline a messy canon, but it eventually just turns into people walking around a house. Light jabs at the franchise, intended to be endearing, feel insulting because you, as an audience member, begin to feel that the movie hates you. And not even a cool, surreal house. Just a house. Christopher Jacot is wasted. Doug Bradley is somehow wasted, because they are mostly too afraid to be over the top with anything. At the very least, an attempt was made, but somehow that is more disappointing than if a random script was slapped with the franchise name. It kind of feels like the worst kind of filler episode, but in movie form.

Now, for starters, I would like to say that I am all for the Hallmark/Lifetime formula. It works! This film does not. It is so boring that it actually became confusing at times because I had trouble focusing for more than 30 second intervals. The characters are not even two-dimensional. They have no personality traits besides "bad relationship with dad" or "dead mom," so the "deeper" themes that they were going for fall flat. The decorations in the background clash, but even by themselves, they are ugly (see poorly painted wooden snowflake things on barn wall). Furthermore, the audacity to call a movie Christmas in Paris and a) have most of it take place in Montana, and b) not even shoot in Paris, is astounding. I wish that this had been a soulless Christmas movie like Hallmark or Lifetime would put out, but it isn't. Instead, it feels like my soul has also been crushed.

The ending of this movie is nothing but compounded plot holes. The rest is faux-deep, boring, and clichéd. The dialogue is so unnatural that I almost thought the twist would be that the main character had imagined everything and was still in the mental asylum. Every character is either boring or extremely unlikeable. The only positive aspect of this movie was the coloring, which was pleasant to look at. I appreciated the use of red to designate Mercy Black, but I wish that it had been used a bit more.