peskypaul’s review published on Letterboxd:
🎅🏼71%
🗿47%
🔙A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving🔙
🔜Home Alone 2🔜
Originally expected to watch a movie on my flight to NYC this morning but I was shattered. Arrived in NY did a little walking around Central Park taking in all the movie locations(elf bridge, John Wick’s Excommunicado, Home Alone fireworks) and then went to the Night of the Museum location followed by a pizza slice at Joes Pizza, then to end the day we got to one of the old AMC theatres to watch Red One.
I was curious and I’ve always got time for a Christmas movie, especially when you have J.K. Simmons playing Santa Clause.. the fine print didn’t say he was only getting a cameo role though. The guy is literally in the movie for maybe a total of 10 minutes screen time, that disappointed me a little.
The Christmas aspect of the movie is a success and the groundwork is there with an interesting concept but the execution is a little all over the place and doesn’t end up fulfilling any potential. I love the idea of the E.L.F Task Force, and the whole system they have with the mystic creature service thing with Lucy Liu at the helm of the service is intriguing and something I would have enjoyed exploring a little more. But as with most aspects of the movie it was a little all over the place, even taking that into consideration I still thought this was some fairly good cheap entertainment.
Then you take a look at the budget and laugh a little because it’s far from cheap entertainment as it cost them a whopping $250m, it’s a great job Dwayne the Rock Johnson took home $50m of that because he clearly deserved it for the performance he churned out. The visual effects for that sort of price should be the best of the best but it’s not and the North Pole is just a dark mess of a thing, really uninspiring and I’ve seen better north poles in the Santa Paws series.
The story is bog standard and a bit wishy washy, the rocks character is called Callum Drift and he’s Santa’s head elf who can’t see the magic of Christmas anymore and you guessed it over the corse of the movie his viewpoint changes, shocker I know! Anyway the turning point is Chris Evan’s character who’s at a point in his career where he’s made silly money from Captain America so he can afford to play these wacky roles without losing much credibility.
Going back to Chris’ character he’s a goof and I can’t take him seriously at any point, even when he gets a serious moment with his son Dylan it’s impossible to take at face value as they are talking in-front of a big green screen.
Krampus was a fine addition and I kind of enjoyed his introduction scene with his own Slap competition, bit of a weird decision to have him pull up at the end of the movie to help Santa but this is a movie with many odd decisions so it isn’t off brand. Finding out Krampus is Tormund Giantsbane from the G.o.T series put a smile on my face, great actor.
Did not enjoy the witch Gryla and have never even heard of a Christmas witch, she was just kind of thrown in there and sure there was a little back story but not enough to care in the slightest.
Overall I still had a good laugh at the cinema but it’s not an impressive movie in the slightest, it’s actually shocking how this cost $250m and I know the cast probably took most of that but it doesn’t look good, it’s got an average shot selection with a weak color palette. It’s a better Christmas movie than it is a regular movie, and with alot of changes this could have been a 3/3.5* movie.
