Review of I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998) by Cameron L — 29 May 2011

With "I'll Be Home for Christmas," Disney is clearly zeroing in on the same holiday B.O. territory it mined so successfully in 1994 with the Tim Allen starrer "The Santa Clause." This time, the studio is stuffing its Christmas stocking with Allen's TV co-star, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, in a blandly appealing family comedy. Thomas has a natural screen presence and he never sheds the instinctual wit that made him a household name. Arrogance gives way to humility, making this an appropriate, if thoroughly cliched, Christmas morality tale that's sugar-coated with an attractive cast spouting sitcom-quality dialogue. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles for the Disney Channel set. Surprisingly engaging, I'll Be Home for Christmas is no Citizen Kane, but it is lively family fare. Sure, the jokes are pretty lame, but you get that cute little Jonathan Taylor Thomas on screen and you gotta fall in love, right?

VERDICT: "Matinée" - (Mixed reaction). These kinds of movies are usually movies that had some good things, but some bad things kept it from being amazing. This rating says to pay matinée prices to see at a theatre, buy an ex-rental or a cheap price of the DVD to own.