Another surprisingly solid Disney made for TV effort is 2000’s The Ultimate Christmas Present, directed by Greg Beeman. There’s some good times to be had in this tale of California teens Allison (Hallee Hirsh) and her BFF Samantha (Brenda Song) who stumble upon a strange machine in the woods that belongs to Santa Claus. Pretty soon they realise they can use it to control the weather and inadvertently cause chaos that they will need to do their best to undo to Save Christmas.
This has a decent kiddie cast, passable effects and a cool, original, weather-based spin on the Christmas movie formula. It’s a neat idea – what 13-year-old wouldn’t want the chance to cause a snow day just when you need it most? That’s what sneaky Allison does when she realises she’s left all her Christmas prep to the last minute, has forgotten to study for the big test and also really wants to go to a cute boy’s party. It’s a fantastical tale with a solid moral about not leaving important things so late. Maybe my wife should watch this…
Anyway, there are some entertaining moments like where Allison makes it snow and thunder and lightning in her bedroom and it's all done pretty effectively on what seems like a small budget. It’s cool to see normally sun-baked California struggle to cope with a sudden blanket of snow. Everyone freaks out and are totally ill-equipped to handle the weather, reminding me very much of how the UK seems to grind to a halt every time it snows. You think we’d have contingencies in place but hey ho, that would be too sensible.
Allison realises that using the device to solve her problems soon causes a whole heap of new ones. Her mother can’t get to work, her Dad gets stranded and nobody can get to Allison’s Christmas presents – it’s a yuletide disaster!
I enjoy that Santa’s elves buck the trend in this one by being huge, muscly guys who get miffed at the ‘little guy’ stereotype and are sent on a mission to get the device back. They offer a bit of comic relief and their idea to have Christmas done by computerised parcel delivery service is really prophetic and not that different from how Amazon now dominates the holidays.
I watch this at the same time as Joe Biden declares a national emergency in Texas, which has seen the state experience record freezing temperatures and, just like the folk in this movie, really struggle to cope with the unnatural weather. It makes me wish Santa’s magic device really existed, so we could get over there and defrost the poor turtles trapped in a frozen river. It’s sad.
This is a perfectly serviceable kiddy TV movie with some neat ideas and pleasant leads. However, I am left slightly worried that the girls’ antics almost certainly froze a lot of people to death. Also, why the heck does Santa need a weather machine, anyway?
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