Review of A Christmas Story 2 (2012) by Troy F — 29 Dec 2012

One would last expect A Christmas Story to get a direct-to-video sequel, but it happened, and of course one would not expect any good from it. A Christmas Story 2 is a really bad film that pays some good homage to the original and even tries to capture the washed out colour palette look in the cinematography which is nice and even the set designs and clothing looks 40's and respective to the time period so all of that was well done.

However, with some of the homages, they take a shit on it and make it rotten. The acting is a mixed bag with Ralphie being a below average actor that fares okay, his brother Randy is not bad I guess, the mother and father are the actors that annoy that crap out of me, more so the father played by Daniel Stern.

He's always making stupid quotes like "You know what they say..." and you just wish the film cut out a lot of his scenes. The story really isn't all that bad, Ralphie really wants a new car but is in trouble when he wrecks it in a test drive, prompting him to go for a job and find schemes to make money to pay off the damage, while the film intercuts with the father being too cheap to pay for turkey and attempting ice fishing and the brother going to a dentist, these subplots distract and slow the film down way too much when Ralphie's story should be the central focus.

Just when the story seemed not that bad, the ending gives a shitty payoff that just craps on it. I'd love to rip it to shreds, but I can't give it a harsh rating really. If it's got something going for it which is some of the stuff I've mentioned above, than it's not truly horrible, right? It's a poor film overall, but there was clearly some nice effort put into this film for a low budget work and even if trying to capture the feel of the original didn't always work, the effort is there and so I commend all of that.

However, what starts as a not so bad story drags down to a pace that is cumbersome even for 1h 25min, and we get some cheesy acting and a few moments where you'd smirk or chuckle a bit but never really laugh at.

Of course I'd rather not recommend this film, but for curiosity's sake, it won't hurt, for me it was Daniel Stern that made the film much worse than it already was.