My wife and I (and her parents) tend to watch a lot of Christmas movies this time of year. Here are my rankings of those we got to this year:
- The Claus Family
Especially considering the two sequels, not very good. Pretty unconvincing and to-be-expected storylines, both about Santa Claus and saving the biscuit factory. The humor wasn’t great either, but this was probably made worse by watching a dub.
★☆☆☆☆
- Family Switch
Family Freaky Friday, but not as good. Tenuous connection to Christmas. Lots of writing that had the appearance of jokes.
★☆☆☆☆
- Love Hard
Pretty good Christmas romantic comedy. The writing and acting were quite good in general, and the characters had more dimension than most rom-coms, especially Josh.
★★★★☆
- Holiday in the Vineyards
Pretty standard Hallmark-style Christmas romantic comedy, meaning not much comedy and a stretched connection to Christmas (who has a real estate deadline on Christmas Eve?). The son of a fancy wine company has to sneak around a small town to get inside info on buying the vineyard. Falls in love with a sexy local wine lady, and has to reveal his lies. Some gratuitous shirtless abs, and way too public sexy dancing.
★★☆☆☆
- Christmas with You
A slight deviation from the standard format, an aging pop star surprises a fan for the holidays, falls in love with the dad, and writes a hit Christmas song with him. Not terrible, but not one I need to watch again.
★★★☆☆
- Candy Cane Lane
This one was a wild ride. A neighborhood’s Christmas decoration contest escalates dramatically. This one was laugh-out-loud funny and I found the animation for the figurines quite effective.
★★★★★