Review of The Christmas Chronicles (2018) by Macphly — 23 Nov 2018

I’m a huge Christmas-movie-buff! I mean I have this whole list of movies I have to go through before it feels like Christmas! -sidenote/ I can’t stand the Hallmark Christmas movies!

Most of the movies on my list, like 99%, are pre ’00. The movies after 2000 simply doesn’t do it for me! And for a long time I have dreaded that no more movies would be added to my list because the movies all ready on it was connected with my childhood Christmases, and therefore new movies, no matter how good they would have been, would have a chance!

But last night I decided to give “The Christmas Chronicles” from Netlfix a chance. The trailers and featurettes didn’t really do it for me, so my expectations were very low….

I must be honest… I loved the movie before the intro was over! It gave me that sorely missed nostalgia fix when you went thru the old VHS recordings of the family’s Christmas pasts.

The movie actually had a lot of “The Santa Clause” vibes! The delinquent youth (Teddy) reminded me of “Charlie” in the second Clause movie and the “true believer” in Kate was as lovely and goodhearted as Lucy in the third Clause movie. Some would say that it was a copy of the characters and therefor would be a bad thing, but for me it meant that those 2 characters gave me a feeling of recognition and (again) that all important nostalgia from when I saw the Clause movies as a child.

So yeah, the kids “did it” for me. But what about the all-important Santa? Can Kurt Russell actually portray that big hearted/bellied, fuzzy and all loving Santa? It turns out he can’t… But this is in no way meant as a bad thing, because Russell made Santa into a goodhearted, weight conscious, sneaky cool cat! I mean… he sings the blues in Jail with some prostitutes and other criminals who magically gets musical talents and instruments. Russell manages to give the Santa character a lot of edge (escaping the law, dunking presents, lying to kids, heckling the portrayal of Santa on billboards and soda cans) but also still keeps that Santa “feeling”. It’s definitely my favorite “Santa” of all the movie Santa’s out there!

In the end I even started liking the Elf’s. At first it annoyed me that they where portrayed as these small hairy things. But as the movie progressed, I started loving them like the little minions they are(seriously.. one of the Elf’s almost cut the balls of Teddy with a chainsaw! Such a minion thing to do)! Even their language sounded like when minions talk mixed with some Nordic/Scandinavian terms and names.