Ton Noël ou le mien 2

Absolute boondoggle! Don't get me wrong, if you grabbed me and a bunch of my friends and told me we could have an all expenses paid ski vacation with just a little bit of work plus inviting Jane Kracowski(sp) along for the ride I'd be all over it. I know these things are formulaic but how many misunderstandings can you fit in one roof? Also, out of curiosity, we gwon go to Jamaica? Asa has seemingly avoided the curse of child actor and fits the bill of genuine person who happens to be of station. The actress who plays Haley is also genuine and beautiful. Pretty good but the mishaps are too many.

This is a paint-by-numbers sitcom mega-episode, but it's an entertaining sequel nonetheless. The story is based on a muddle of fortunes between stereotypical class groups that often feels awkward, yet is sometimes unabashedly honest. It has many cringeworthy moments, and there are some genuine laughs too. Some characters are massively underwritten, but it really doesn't matter. Take it for what it is, which is light entertainment at its most enthusiastic, and much better than most of the crap the American studios are passing off as comedy these days. If only the Krampus guy (from The Counterfeiters) had more screen time!

I didn't care much for the first 'Your Christmas Or Mine?' so was surprised to see there was a follow up. This is quite poor with dodgy acting and a stupid, and I do mean stupid, storyline. As if Geoff would have booked them in to somewhere so awful in the first place. Oh wait, the posh family has gone there by mistake. Lazy, lazy writing and not convincing at all. It is at this stage that I have admit that I bailed out on this about half way through as it was doing my head in.

I know it's a feelgood Christmas movie but this feels contrived, desperate and in the end it's just plain annoying. Give it a wide berth.

Your Christmas or mine surrounded the loneliness of the holidays with two different family archetypes - the feuding British upper crust and the working class pub warmth. Despite occasionally playing to stereotypes, the film did a deep dive into both families, while fleshing out each of the characters. The final 20 minutes created Christmas magic when both came together.

The sequel has a bigger budget but less heart. It played with every single obnoxious stereotype imaginable with the loud lower class family. Occasionally, it also conflated race with class. Existing characters like the grandfathers on both sides and the sassy aunt received even less acknowledgment and maybe had five lines each in the film. There were newer characters added that did absolutely nothing for the plot including Jane Krakowski's American authoress.

This was such an absolute waste of talent. The original cast had so much chemistry I wanted to see the grandfathers playing off of each other, more honest intimacy between the young couple and the parents fleshing out their own relationships.

Whenever the script quieted down we got the magic intimate moments from the original. There were even times when the script let the characters grow and we learn that everyone in the working class family can ski rather than playing to stereotypes.

However, the strength of the original script surrounded the feelings of the family members and the honest communication.

But this felt more like let's take two different British family archetypes and put them into a big budget Hollywood movie and see what happens ... Sadly,none of the original magic ....

I really enjoyed the first movie and this sequel is even more fun. A young British couple and their very different families spend Christmas in a ski ressort in the Austrian Alps and chaos ensues. The mountain setting in Tyrol is beautiful and it´s a hilarious feel-good movie that doesn´t take itself too seriously. And neither should you if you decide to watch it, it´s not an Odcar contender, just a good-natured Christmas movie for the whole family. I think it doesn´t deserve the 1-star ratings and I had a blast watching it, that´s why I´m writing this review. I liked that they also cast some Austrian actors instead of Brits or Americans imitating the accent or pretending to speak German, which they do in many other movies. I admit I´m a bit biased as an Austrian and because the movie features one of my favourite local actors from "The Counterfeiters", Karl Markovics. But I think you will also enjoy this culture- and class-clash comedy with some laugh-out-loud scenes. It will leave you with a smile on your face.