(POSTER PROVIDED VIA GOOGLE)
***WARNING: I APOLOGIZE AS THERE MAY BE POSSIBLE SPOILERS. IF SO, SORRY :(***
RELEASE DATE: November 22, 2018
RATED: TV-PG
RUNNING TIME: 1 Hour 44 Minutes
DIRECTOR: Clay Kaytis
WRITER: Matt Lieberman
STARRING:
Kurt Russell as Santa Claus
Oliver Hudson as Doug Pierce
Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Claire Pierce
Judah Lewis as Teddy Pierce
Darby Camp as Kate Pierce
Every holiday season, I find myself looking for great Christmas movies to watch with my family. As a child, a good Christmas movie would help the season feel more and more magical. Films like A Christmas Story, Santa Claus: The Movie, Frosty The Snowman, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer gave me hours of entertainment that brought on for good Christmas cheer. Later on films such as Elf and The Santa Clause Trilogy would add to my holiday fun. But over the past few years I have found that our holiday choices have been lacking. I feel that we as a society have had our Christmas movies slowly taken away from us as a majority of the movies that I have mentioned above do not get shown anymore. We are left with Hallmark or Lifetime originals that are super cheesy and too over the top with the corny factor than they need to be.
Netflix has brought us an answer to the poor choices of the holiday season with The Christmas Chronicles. In this film, we are introduced Kate and Teddy Pierce. We see them in video snap shots of each Christmas as they grow up. Each year showing the holiday joy and excitement up until 2017 when there is suddenly a dramatic and sad change to their lives that effect the children, especially Teddy. Teddy has lost his not only his Christmas spirit, but also a piece of himself that is taking a huge toll on him.
While Kate watches old Christmas family videos, she notices a strange occurrence in on of the scenes involving her parents. As they leave the living room area, Kate sees a mysterious red arm come from the location of where the fire place is and quickly drop a present at the Christmas tree. Kate feels the need to tell Teddy and to catch the would be Santa Claus in the act.
Teddy humors her and and stays up with her on Christmas Eve to see if her theory is correct. While filming the living room from a hidden area, she catches someone in her house and at her Christmas tree. Then the mystery man suddenly disappears.
Kate jumps to investigate and Teddy follows her out of the house where they find Santa's slay and his reindeer hovering in the air above the street. Kate sneaks into the slay along with Teddy before giving Santa a freight after he launches into the sky onto his next stop.
After they children scare Santa and the Reindeer. The sack of Christmas gifts are lost, the reindeer fly off and Santa crashes his slay. This begins a night full of adventure and wonder as they all race to retrieve all that was lost in time to save Christmas.
I loved this movie. This is the Christmas movie that I have been waiting for. Kurt Russell as Santa Claus is amazing and the rest of the cast play off of each other greatly. My favorite parts of the movie are when Kurt Russell's Santa continues gets insulted and defensive about how we depict him on billboards and media. There is one scene where he mutters to himself about all the time he spends in the gym and staying away from carbs as we think he is a gross fat slob. It's in the movie. Watch it, you'll see.
All in all, my daughter loved the movie, I loved the movie. We had fun watching it and it will definitely make it into our yearly rotation of Christmas tradition. I give the film 4 stars out of 5 and I definitely recommend it to all. Enjoy!
