It`s
finally December, which means it`s time for my favorite holiday of the year:
CHRISTMAS! I freaking LOVE Christmas- it`s my favorite time of the year! About
this time I feel overcome by the holiday spirit and feel the need to be nice to
everybody, against my critical personality for the sheer spirit of Holiday
Cheer. That even includes being nice to people I normally hate- through the
sheer power of Christmas, I now only dislike them this month! Just goes to show
you the power the holidays have over people. But this is a movie blog and you
come for the criticism, so I`d like tot alk about another great part of
Christmas: the holiday specials.
Lots of
TV shows do a Christmas special at one time or another, and some even figure
out how to tie in some story: Adventure ime took the opportunity to reveal a
shocking backstory to a villain, Billy And Mandy used theirs to burn down a
mall and fight vampires, Teen Titans Go showed us a typical Christmas for the
Titans (complete with presents, Christmas dinner, and a reactor explosion), and
even My Little Pony gave us a little insight into the history of Equestria. And
then there are the holiday movies that the TV channels play on repeat. These
are cute a few times, but after a while, they start to get REALLY annoying.
Case in point, Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.
This
movie was based on the somehow popular but extremely catchy/annoying song of
the same name. While it`s funny the first time around, it gets repetitive with
time. The same with the movie. But it`s a Christmas staple by now, right? So
how could I possibly dislike it? Kick back, grab a couple of candy canes (or as
Starfire puts it, striped hooks) and some cocoa and find out.
The movie
opens up in the Spankenheimer General Store in the middle of Cityville (really?
Cityville? That`s worse than Townsville from the Powerpuff Girls), where Jake
Spankenheimer (I`d like to spank the heimer of whoever came up with that dumb
name) tells us about his Grandma and how awesome she is: she reads to kids in an
elf costume, takes good care of her family, and really, really loves Christmas.
These seem like typical Grandma things to do, but Jake seems to confuse them
with acts of god. Jake is approached by a businessman, Austin Bucks (with a
last name like that, you could have just named him `Lotsa`) with a proposition
for Grandma. But she is busy reading, and Austin decides he too needs to wear a
costume. He dons a troll outfit (that still looks more legitimate than the
costumes from Troll 2, trolls or not) and talks with her when the book is done.
Austin
wants to make Christmas easier for people by using his funds on expensive
technology (which is a legitimate business decision when you think about it)
and thinks Spankenheimer`s General Store is a perfect place to start. Grandma,
clearly against big business, refuses. But the offer delights Cousin Mel
Spankenheimer, a woman who fits every greedy villain stereotype ever existing,
who wants to make a lot of money off of Mr. Bucks and the general store. Jake
and his sister Daphne debate the existence of Santa Claus as Mel hatches an
evil plan: she will sabotage Grandma`s apparently famous Killer Fruitcake with
a substance that will make it uneatable, thus dropping Grandma`s sales and
forcing her to sell the store (what about all the other things in the store?
Just because she`s greedy doesn`t mean she`s smart). Grandma then takes the
fruitcake home, having not taken her medications (like in the song). As Grandma
Spankenheimer exits the house, Santa Claus comes crashing down and, you guessed
it, accidentally runs over Grandma. Grandma disappears, and Cousin Mel finds a
letter apologizing for the situation. Mel, being a greedy person, hides the
important letter.
So about
a year passes since the trampling of Grandma and everyone appears to be sad.
Cousin Mel has a new evil plan and tricks the old senile Grandpa Spankenheimer
into giving her control of the store. She attempts to sell the store to Austin
Bucks, but Jake`s begging makes him feel guilty and give Jake another week to
find Grandma. Jake decides to send Mr. Claus an E-Mail (apparently Santa has a
public Email address) and encloses a picture of Grandma that he brings up by
typing a few keys, which leads me to believe that in this world, there is a
Grandma emoticon. Shortly after, Sant`s head elf, Jingles, arrives and offers
to help Jake figure out what happened to his grandmother. Jake, clearly
unfamiliar with the concept of stranger danger, happily agrees. Thankfully,
Jingles is an actual elf and not a pedophile, so he has Jake hitch a ride on
Santa`s sleigh and head to the North Pole to discover the fate of Grandma.
While
they take a sleigh ride, a song plays about how people need to learn to share
while Santa considers not having a Christmas. I kind of like the song because
it explores a human emotion of greed and opinions on it, and how the poor are
grateful for anything while the rich whine about not enough. It sort of works
to play with the opinions of Mel and Jake, but I`d actually like the song a
little more if it wasn`t in this movie. It`s a nice song.....what is it doing
in this crapfest? Guess we`ll never know.
Jake and
Jingles reach the North Pole, where it is revealed that Grandma is not dead-
she has been in the North Pole all this time, and Santa has been taking care of
her (wonder what Mrs. Claus thinks of that). Jake approached his grandma but
unfortunately she has contacted amnesia due to the hooves in her face. Jake
takes her back to Cityville (you know, I`m pretty sure there was a place in Powerpuff
Girls called Cityville) and explains what happened, and the group works to
thwart Cousin Mel`s evil plans. They meet Mel and her agent, I.M Slime
(Seriously), who hatch a plan to kidnap Grandma. After Jake explains the
situation to Mr. Bucks, they discover Grandma has gone missing, Mel and Slime
plot to sue Santa, figuring he must have a lot of money (apparently they don`t
understand the Santa mythos) on the charges of "Sleighhicular
Negligence" (a kid-friendly version of Vehicular Homicide) while singing a
terrible samba/conga song about suing the previously mentioned Mr. Claus. This
song is short, but it`s really annoying. If I wanted to listen to Samba, I
would have gone for "Day of The Dead". At least that had some actual
Mexican culture references.
Jake
discovers the cabin while the girls are away, rescues Grandma and finds the
note Santa left a year earlier, along with an interesting find: a bottle of
"Reindeer Nip", that was smuggled into Grandma`s fruitcake to get the
reindeer to trample her (so Cousin Mel really based her plan on the existence
and exact timing of Santa?). Jake manages to feed Grandma some of her
fruitcake, which triggers her memories and cures her amnesia. But Mel and Slime
prepare to sue Saint Nick, so they all head off to court. Jake`s reasoning
proves triumphant, as he is able to force Mel to confess to her evil deeds. Mel
is sent to jail and Grandma gains control of her store once more.
After the
trial, Austin Bucks approaches Grandma. Touched by the Christmas spirit exerted
by the family, he offers to ditch the idea of faster Christmas and has a
different idea: If Grandma will accept it, Austin will open up a chain of
Spankenheimer`s General Stores around the country (again, with all the business
it gets, it`s a solid business decision). Grandma happily accepts the deal, but
as she exits the scene, she makes a mistake and picks up the tainted cake,
causing Rudolph to trample her yet again. But this time, Grandma doesn`t seem
to be hurt (despite being trampled by 8 reindeer as opposed to 1) and brushes
herself off. Santa says "Feliz Navidad" and flies off into the
distance.
If you`re
a speed-reader like me, you`re probably not even finished with your first
striped hook, and you certainly haven`t finished your cocoa, if you have either
of those with you right now. But besides that, what do I think of this?
OVERALL
RATING: 3/10
-----------------------------------------
I guess
it isn`t the most terrible thing I`ve seen. Don`t get me wrong, I don`t like
it. It`s kind of annoying, Jake is a whiner, and most of the songs are pretty
bad. Plus, I don`t like how they sort of portrayed Bucks as a bad guy: he was
just doing business. As somewhat of a businessman myself, I can understand his
motivation: by getting Christmas shopping over with via fast delivery, it makes
it that much easier to prepare for the holiday so you have more time with your
family. Perhaps Bucks understood that, and Jake did not. Either way, they could
have just put it somewhere else. The character of the villain (she isn`t funny
of likable in any way) also contributes to this film`s downfall, but overall
it`s just a sketchy, trashy, standard-issue Christmas Special.
Why this
song needed a backstory is beyond me, but it doesn`t do anything for the
gimmick. Get me away from this film and point me towards 34th Street, please. I
heard there`s a miracle happening there.
No comments:
Post a Comment