Please don't consider me a Scrooge or a humbug. That title sounds like Christmas being a terrible time of year for me. It's not. In fact, it's my favourite time of year and the period where the fondest memories of my life are from. There are many classic Christmas films, specials, cartoons etc, watched every year without fail by me and my family. But there are ones that are really not good in almost every shape or form, so lets get any conceptions of bias out of the way.
Very like 'Baby's First Christmas'. It takes a lot for me to irredeemably hate on a film and give it the lowest possible rating here especially in recent years, it's actually one of my least given out ratings being an often generous but firm reviewer. But 'Baby's First Christmas' deserves it. One of the worst Christmas films ever in my view, towards the bottom of the pile when it comes to Hallmark Christmas films and the worst overall film seen since 1988's 'The Wicked Stepmother' at the beginning of last month. The last 1/10 rating given out for anything though being for a 'Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders' episode.
'Baby's First Christmas' really is that bad and others have said what is wrong with the film already, not an awful lot to add. It is pretty much wrecked especially by its completely unlikeable and downright irritating lead character, the non-sparkling and actually painful to watch chemistry between the leads (consisting of constant arguing and anger) and Rachel Wilson's insufferable over-acting.
And we are talking about a film full of unlikeable characters that only throw insults at each other for the sake of it, awkward chemistry and actors clearly told to overact to the heavens. One actually finds themselves surprised at how Casper Van Dien, who also overdoes it embarrassingly to almost pantomimic effect, still continues to get prolific work after seeing his performance here. Just that the above were especially bad.
We also have a story where everything is easily foreseeable in the first 15 minutes or so with no surprises or risk-taking, literally nothing makes sense (such as scenes constantly seeming to ignore what happened in the previous scene), where everything is unintentionally campy and where sentiment gets really sickly. Even that though comes in spurts because the over-the-top-ness just gets far too much. The dialogue, with some real howlers, has pretty much the same effect, where the interaction between the leads is so choppily handled and throughout it has such an unfinished first draft without checking feel. In real life it is highly unlikely in my view that somebody who read the draft would have approved it, it's that bad.
Even the production values are not enough to save 'Baby's First Christmas', the film looks drab and like it was made in a rush. The direction is pedestrian and the music is overbearing in tone and placement. Nothing is interesting, there is no charm or heart whatsoever (just hammy and mean-spirited) and the pace never ignites.
In a nutshell, very poor and often unbearable. 1/10
