Disney’s Christmas…Again?! is basically a holiday version of Groundhog Day. Except with a worse script and a lot of overacting. That’s the Disney brand, right?
Rowena (Scarlett Estevez) is excited for all of her family’s Christmas traditions. She even made a list of her best memories. But when she wakes up on Christmas morning, she finds that her dad (Daniel Sunjata) brought his girlfriend, Diane (Beth Lacke), and her son, Louie (James McCracken). She still tries to fit in all of the Christmas traditions but fails. Devastated, she makes a wish to Santa to have Christmas again. But now she is still in an endless loop of Christmases.
Yes, this is a Disney movie. No, I’m not the target audience. Just because a movie is targeted at children, that doesn’t mean it has to be bad. This one is pretty terrible. My biggest problem is the extreme overacting. If this was taking place on a stage or any live venue, the overacting would have been fine. That is what actors need to do to make sure they are seen at the back of the audience. But this is a movie with cameras that get right up in the actors’ faces. There is no reason for them to overact this badly.
The plot is fine. It is seriously a Christmas version of Groundhog Day. Rowena does a lot of things off-camera, which can make some pieces of the story confusing. For example, she talks about a random woman in the mall was going to meet her boyfriend, who was going to propose to her but she gets hit with a snowball so the proposal doesn’t happen. Why would an 11-year old girl be talking to this random adult in the mall long enough to find out that much about her life? Even if Rowena didn’t talk to her, why did she follow the woman around to see everything happen?
Which is another gripe I have. Rowena seems to have this supernatural ability to remember everything. It’s never established that she has photographic memory but she recalls things like her uncle’s underwear color, her grandmother’s first love, and how much money her father has in his pocket after being told once and having to relive the entire day again to get to the point where the information is useful. She remembers details about the lives of complete strangers. It’s a lot for a young girl to remember after one conversation.
Stay way from Christmas…Again?! If you are looking for a good movie for kids, check out A Boy Called Christmas or The Claus Family (dubbed, of course). This one is definitely not worth your time.