So, even a slightly upgraded cast (for this kind of thing) can’t fix a crummy script and tepid direction (or was it a tepid script and crummy direction?). Patrick Swayze can’t save it, Chris Kattan, and Carmen Electra can't save it and not even Tim Curry can save it. The terrible kid actors obviously can’t save it. The script is a black hole into which all these actors talents disappear. The cast got my hopes up , a centimeter or two, higher than usual but this Christmas Wonderland was more of a Blunderland. (Ha! See what I did there... these are quality jokes folks!)
***
Hollywood hates Christmas.
They must because, even when they get a decent cast, they put zero effort into it. It’s just a quick buck and a Canadian vacation. And the realization that their audience will watch just about anything with Christmas in the title. Merry friggin Christmas shoulda been good, coulda been good, but it’s not, it’s depressingly mediocre. The low end of mediocre. Plus the whole Robin Williams thing. I won’t be putting myself through this again.
****
Tell him to go away and take his community theater Christmas Carol sequel with him.
***
The script for this one is about 1/10th of a notch above the standard for this level of kid's Christmas movie - almost as if a quirky kid's adventure film, that the screenwriter was actually slightly invested in, was clumsily shoehorned into a boring, predicable melted snowman of a holiday cash-in. I'm guessing most of the budget went towards getting national treasure Ed Asner.
(I do, sort of, feel bad for film-makers laboring in the Christmas genre - it can't be easy to work under the Federal Governments Mandatory Ed Asner Christmas Film Inclusion Legislation.)
***
Naughty and Nice: Saving Christmas, due to The Ansner Rule, wins by default
