A Karate Christmas Miracle

Jesse's father disappeared on Christmas the previous year and they've heard nothing from him. He might be dead, he might have run away or he might have just realized what a bad movie it is and ran off. But young Jesse (Mario Del Vecchio) is having weird dreams about Eric Roberts and some evil clown having kidnapped the man and are holding him prisoner. And, in order to magically get his release, Jesse is convinced he must progress from a yellow belt in martial arts to a black belt in a week. First, HOW would this release the father??? Secondly, the yellow belt is among the lowest ranks and even Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee at their prime couldn't have progressed through a half dozen or so belts this quickly! Jesse apparently is teaching himself karate...and is giving himself these belts as he thinks he's attained them. In other words, Jesse is delusional and seems to be cheating just a bit.

At the same time, Jesse's workaholic mother wants to desperately find her husband...so much so that he pursues a psychic and begs her to help, even though the lady has retired from the craft. Oddly, almost as soon as the psychic agrees to help, the mother begs her to drop the case and go her way. I do not understand ANY of this, but it makes about as much sense as Jesse becoming a black belt in less than a week.

So is any of this good? No. It's not a dislikable film but it is very, very badly written, makes no sense and has the lowest possible production values imaginable. There is nothing about the film that is good...which makes the couple overly glowing reviews seem very, very odd.

Mostly a boring Hallmark-tier movie but what keeps it somewhat entertaining are the weird Lynchian scenes that involve how the main character's dad disappeared a year ago after a mass shooting in a movie theater committed by a guy in a clown outfit. These appear in psychic visions that portray the mastermind monologuing about how no one truly understands his grand vision, played by Eric Roberts of all people. These surreal moments come out of nowhere and are barely explained, so they're at least good for waking you up from how much of a snoozefest the rest of this film is. Every one in this can't act to save their lives , especially the main kid who might just have to worst "trying to fake a nightmare" acting I've ever seen.

If you're looking to be entertained by a "so bad it's good" movie this Christmas, you'll end up sadly disappointed in A Karate Christmas Miracle as anything that might remotely be entertaining about this premise is wasted on going through tropes that were already played out on Lifetime 10 years ago. Avoid unless you like torturing yourself.

I loved it. The majority of all movies are bad. This is truly the bottom of the barrel.

It looks like a low budget Christian film that has been reedited with weird effects for a YouTube video. I honestly cannot believe the effects were supposed to look good. I would wager that the editors knew exactly what they were doing... Maybe.

Every aspect of this movie is garbage. From the opening hobby drone shot that was considerably shaky and grainy from low light, to random cuts to very similar shots, to characters that make you want to punch a wall. (In lieu of their face.)

Bad movies are fun to laugh at, this movie is hilarious.

My new favorite Christmas movie, and a soon to be tradition of watching every year.

This is not a movie.

It's pure insanity, worthy of any group get-together. No one would believe you if you watched this by yourself. If you tried, it would sound MAYBE something like this:

This is seven, maybe seven "movies" put together through a fax machine, that set the fax machine on fire, and THEN, after whomever doused it with as much kerosene & jet fuel as possible to TRY and put it out... that nameless person (or people) thought to themselves, "... ya, this can work."

You want a good laugh? You want to lose your mind in the process? AND you want some Christmas flair added to it, that truly has nothing to do with anything?

Well say no more!

And even AFTER explaining all of that - you blink, then immediately realizing you have no friends (possibly because they all left in the process and/or didn't want to have an aneurism in front of you) and you lost your shoes. Don't ask. You did this to yourself.

This is so bad it's funny. This was made as a joke, right? Couldn't they even get someone who knew what karate was?

I don't understand how something like this can even get made. I also don't know what is more insulting, the cinematography, the transitions, the conclusion, or just the disgusting use of a tragedy for name drops in a movie.