A Christmas Story 2: I don't consider the original to be the best Christmas Movie of all time but it's still a tradition. This is a cash-in, pure and simple. They should not remind us of the original by placing a preview for the original before this piece of crap.
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| Look and despair. |
One thing to note is that the people who made this movie are definitely counting on the nostalgia factor more than anything else. Instead of Ralphie talking about the glory of a Red-Rider Beebee gun, he is describing lovingly a car instead. This is part of the problem. One of the things that I always loved so much about the original movie is that there's still this universal boyhood feel to it. An innocence. Instead, we get Ralphie never shutting up about a car (the Red Ryder gun was more a subplot than anything else) and smelling a girl's hair like some kinda pervert.
Moving along, a heavy amount of the plot involves Ralphie having wrecked said car by accident. The original film didn't have a hell of a plot. It's what helped keep it's timeless quality. It was everything that went up to the day itself. This instead is just Ralphie having grown like eight years, some rather stupid fantasies inserted at random times, and is more than a bit of an idiot. At least in the original, Ralphie would have an inkling of common sense. This kid does stupid things for the sake of being stupid.
The humor is what murders this movie. At one point, a character giftwraps a baby. I am not joking. It is stupid beyond all belief. This is followed by a montage of slapstick involving an over-weight woman trying on shoes, perfume sprayers, and Ralphie playing with a woman's mannequin. What makes most of the humor worse is that they have too many call back gags to the original. For example, the same kid who licks the flagpole sticks his tongue into a pneumatic tube. They even bring up the original. What really doesn't work is Ralphie's little brother who has become a deadpan snarker. Keep in mind that this is in the 40s. That doesn't happen.
Daniel Stern as The Old Man sucks. I'm not skating around that. His version is just mean-spirited. He yells every other line and there's little of the man who secretly got his son a dangerous beebee gun. This is the kind of man who would sell his children on the black market and then gamble away the money. He displays that by refusing the turkey because it's a few cents cheaper. This is not the lovable curmudgeon of the original. This is a freaking terrible human being we're supposed to feel sorry for. Also, he gets the lamp back for the no reason whatsoever.
Another problem is that he bring on the schmaltz, or at least try to. We're talking meaningful heart-to-hearts, long close-ups on a homeless kid and his family (right down to once Ralphie seeing the homeless family and giving them most of the money he saved for the car), and then Ralphie gets the car anyway plus the girl because why the hell not?
Overall, this movie sucks. I wish I could say this is the worst thing I'm going to watch today but I know for a fact that one thing is going to be so vile and terrible that I have no choice but wait in anticipation of it. This movie is going to pretty much be relegated to the halls of forgotten sequels and never be seen again and that's justice, my friends. Real justice. Also, pretty positive that Ralphie's friends in this one are secretly dating each other. Just saying.
Non-Viewing Thoughts: Why do people make cash-in straight to dvd sequels and I just answered my own question there.
Late Christmas Ideas: The ability to remove this movie from my Netflix Queue in the past so I wouldn't have wasted my time on it.
Tally:
Mountain Dews Consumed: 0
Amps consumed: 0
Pumpkin Pie Left: 5/6ths left.
Sanity Rating: (1 being giving up now and going to bed, 10 being deciding to do this into Christmas itself): 4
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