Noël à l'unisson

For once I could watch a movie just for fun. It actually reminded me some of "Sweet Home Alabama". Another movie I could relax and enjoy. I could enjoy "Jingle Belle" with my grandkids and not have to worry what they're seeing or hearing for one moment. The movie might be called "quaint", but when I was growing up it would have been the norm for a family movie. Quaint is just fine in my book, especially for a Christmas movie.

I have already watched about 20 Christmas movies this year, so I have seen the good the bad and fugly. This is a winner. I enjoyed the cast very much. The actors were quite good and natural. The kids were good too. It is nice to see different actors and people I do not see usually, in a holiday movie. Tatyana Ali , whom I have never seen or heard of before is very charismatic and charming. This is the third holiday movie I have watched in the last two weeks featuring her. ( I am watching some older ones, I had never heard of before). I loved the song they ended up with at the end. I would totally add that song to my holiday play list, if I can find it anywhere. Yes the plot was the same girl goes back to hometown plot, but this is like comfort food. The difference between a good one of these movies and a horrible one, is the actors, the production values and no plot holes. Yes the snow looked fake, but so far that is true in almost all of the ones I have been watching. Why do they never film these in the actual snow? I guess real snow gets muddy, wet and ugly with an entire movie crew working on it. Good job. This is an enjoyable feel good movie. Good family movie, or movie to have playing in the background while you go about your holiday prep. Merry Christmas!

The premise of this movie is almost exactly like at least one other Christmas movie and very similar to several others. It had the potential to sink into obscurity. But after 2/3rds or so there is an interesting twist that puts a different take on the story. Unfortunately, after that other overused tropes sneak back into the story so it ends up in the same place, but what else can you expect when there are only so many possible outcomes.

Most of the acting is solid. The leads have a chemistry as they revisit their past. There is some good solid soul searching by those same characters.

Sometimes it's hard to judge the quality of acting when humor is involved especially if the humor is exaggerated. In this case though, I think it's definitely true that Loretta Devine, as the unethical boss, has some horrible acting moments.

The movie includes performance of some traditional Christmas songs by a youth choir and one of an original song by the leads.

Plastic smiles and dito accidental tear, hollow characters, overloud background music, predictable plot (even the 'twist'), life in a super sweet smalltown versus bad, bad big town. A boring lovestory, all wrapped around the creation of a horrible, horrible song. Yes, it has it all and yes, it is a toe curling movie. The only reason I finished watching it was that I was sort of trapped on a sofa during a family moment.

Really wanted to like 'Jingle Belle' so much more and like it as much as some of the other reviewers. Being somebody that did find the idea kind of cute and who likes films centered around making and performing music, regardless of it not being novel. Get a lot of pleasure watching Christmas films and Christmas has always been very special to me, so there was no negative bias against the film from the get go. Far from it.

'Jingle Belle' had potential, not massive but it was there. To me, it just didn't live up to it. Is it a terrible film? No, there are far worse films out there. Is 'Jingle Belle' good? To me, no it wasn't and felt too that the bad outweighed the good. The good things are there and they aren't small, but the bad things stuck out at me more, not just because of there being more bad than good but also the flaws were bigger in size than the strengths.

Did like most of the acting, with the two leads especially being very appealing. Tatyana Ali in particular is a joy and their chemistry is sweet and has a genuine spark. The twist mentioned elsewhere was a nice and a welcome and successful attempt of breaking away from complete predictability, one that wasn't one prematurely foreseeable for me.

It looks good visually, the settings may not be authentic but they look attractive, as does the photography. Some of the music is pleasant.

Too much of it however for my tastes didn't balance well with the dialogue, it should have been used with a lot more subtlety in volume and in use. Am another person that didn't care for the main song, was squirming in my seat personally and felt that it was all noise but no soul with very uninspired text. While the acting was decent generally, Loretta Devine came over as annoying due to her overplaying her character. The characters mostly didn't irritate me but there needed to be more development to them.

One twist aside, this is very over-familiar territory in terms of story and executed in a quite hohum and quite dull way, taking time to get started and then running out of steam (nothing in the final act surprises). Nice ideas here, not followed through enough. The script is bland and the sentiment gets a bit too much in spots.

All in all, has its moments but not my cup of tea. 4/10