For my next widely hated yuletide flick, we find the odd grouping of Patrick Swayze, Chris Kattan, Carmen Electra, Tim Curry and Jackass’s own Preston Lacey - together at last! In Canada! This one, filmed in 2007, was shelved until Swayze’s untimely passing in 2009. It’s perhaps cynical to suggest this was released purely to cash in on the Point Break star’s death, but then again, it’s hard to ignore that the release was marketed heavily based on Swayze’s involvement despite him only appearing in a few scenes. Swayze is Wayne, the father of the film’s central trio of insouciant youngsters having a wild adventure in Edmonton, Alberta’s mega-mall and it’s all a bit naff, though by no means the worst film ever made.
The Saunders clan have had a rough time, with oil rig worker Wayne getting laid off, necessitating the move to Canada. Pre-teen Brian (Matthew Wright) and 16-year-old bro Danny (Cameron Bright) sulk a lot and wish they could move home to L.A., while adorable little sis Mary (Amy and Zoe Schlagel) just hopes that Santa will be able to find them in their new house. I do enjoy the bizarreness of this cute little sprog taking a chisel to the fireplace to make sure the jolly gift-giver can get in.
Mom’s flight from L.A. got grounded, so it’s now up to Wayne to shepherd the kids through a last-minute Christmas shopping trip to the ginormous Edmonton Mall. Seriously, this thing’s got a water park and its own aquarium. It’s huge and a neat location for a kiddie adventure film.
Unfortunately, the writers couldn’t think up a cleverer plot than ‘dim-witted crooks lose a bag of counterfeit cash, kids find it and have fun’. There’s also a whole unnecessary ‘magical’ subplot featuring a spectral Santa who seems to appear everywhere at just the right time to help the goodies out.
Tim Currie’s in there too as a curiously accented mountie on the trail of Kattan and Lacy’s half-witted forgers. Tim’s clearly not giving a damn, having a laugh and giving his Canadian mountie an inexplicable Scottish accent. Carmen Electra’s mastermind Ginger is a paper-thin caricature cartoon villainess, there to look good and act like a well-dressed Cruella DeVille style bitch.
I do giggle probably more than the film deserves, and feel like I’m definitely laughing more at it than with it. Lacy and Kattan are given awful material to work with, the main joke seeming to be that Lacy’s hood Sheldon is hilarious because he’s fat and dumb. Kattan’s character Leo’s defining characteristics are that he is also dumb and that Sheldon annoys him. Haha.
This is a strange one, as Christmas in Wonderland has the perfect ingredients for a great Christmas film but it just doesn’t come off. There are some entertaining bits with the children enjoying spending the money doing things that you just know dumb kids would do in this situation, splashing the dosh on toys, mountains of junk food and the obligatory ‘trying on lots of different outfits’ montage. But, it’s all just a little too unremarkable.
The mall itself is impressive, looking wonderfully festive and includes its own pirate attraction that should be a wonder for kids to behold. However, despite many chase sequences, including a motorcycle pursuit through the crowded mall, the film just isn’t ever as fun as you expect it to be. It’s all fairly tedious but after the horror of …The Ice Cream Bunny, this one seems fine, though sadly probably isn’t the legacy Swayze wanted to leave behind.
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