By Geno McGahee
In 2018, an instant holiday classic was made. THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES hit Netflix and was amazing with humor and action and plenty of heart. I loved that movie and looked forward to the sequel, which was just released. THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 2 was just released and I didn’t expect it to be as good as the first, but I didn’t expect what I ended up sitting through either.
Kate (Darby Camp) and Teddy (Judah Lewis), the brother/sister combo from the first are back and are in the tropics with their mother, Claire (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), and her new boyfriend, Bob (Tyrese Gibson), and his young son, Jack (Jahzir Bruno). Kate isn’t happy about her mom’s new man and isn’t happy with the location of their holiday plans and wishes to be rescued.
In the meantime, Belsnickel (Julian Dennison), a former elf turned human, is looking for revenge on Santa for neglecting him. He launches both Kate and Jack into a wormhole, leading them to the North Pole and allowing him to return as well. Now, Santa is reunited with Kate and is aware that his former elf is there to cause trouble.
Mrs. Claus (Goldie Hawn) doesn’t want Jack and Kate to leave, missing having children around, and it’s nice to see Hawn more involved. When all hell breaks loose and Belsnickel turns the elves naughty, it’s up to Jack and Kate to save the day. Santa (Kurt Russell) and Kate are trying to make things right while Jack goes on an adventure to locate an herb to turn the elves back to nice.
What an annoying little shit Jack is. I’m not sure what the point was with this character. I’m guessing that it was put in to appeal to the children, but what made the first so good was how it appealed to all audiences. Jack being a badass as he takes on some sort of huge cat in the woods was annoying, but Jack cannot hold a candle to Belsnickel, the biggest problem in the movie. This conflict sucks and sinks the film before it began.
I feel bad for Kurt Russell in this. You can see how he desperately tried to make this work, but it just wasn’t there. He had his moments where he’s amusing, but it has nothing on the first. As good as Goldie Hawn is, her performance is very dull and forgettable. It’s too bad because she’s a tremendous comedic force when given the right material.
I know Jack is just a kid, but damn, I was hoping the elves would take him down and I didn’t care much for the elves in this either. I know this might get some bad feedback too, but Belsnickel is too fucking fat. I know we are in this period in time where they want to include fatties in substantial roles in films BUT a sloppy fat villain isn’t good. I like an occasional fat villain like Kingpin from Spider-Man, but Belsnickel is terrible and just looked sloppy. I don’t know if there’s a person alive that would be remotely intimidated by him.
THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 2 is pure shit. I’m actually pretty shocked. I loved the first one so much that I’m going to try to forget that this one exists now. Much like CREED, a great movie and CREED II, which was shit, I’m going to pretend that there never was a sequel and that there was only one stand alone film.
This was a rush job without any inspiration. If you loved the first like I did, avoid this one. Just pretend that Netflix actually spent time developing a follow up rather than pushing out this turd for the holiday season. Kurt Russell deserved so much more.
