Christmas in the Rockies

Another movie with a contest to save the family _______ (logging company). Three weeks to train for a physical activity her competitors have been training for their whole lives and outweigh her 2-1 or more. So like many rom/coms don't even try to reconcile anything close to realism. But this one stretches way past even those. The story is lame with no real highs or lows or surprises. The "tag line" for the movie promo doesn't make sense and also gives away what might have been the only surprise way too close to the end. The climax plays out like all these movies do, just different details. The dialogue isn't much.

Mike Shara is too young to be Katie's dad and his acting is bad.

Kimberly-Sue Murray and Stephen Huszar are OK together, but Katie and Harrison cozy up pretty darn fast.

So apparently there is a shortage of actors in the 50 to 70 year old range. Well I know that's not true so I am guessing that Mike Shara was originally cast as the love interest but got demoted to playing the father when Stephen Huszar, more well known to TV romance fans became available. The father and daughter were played by actors who were the same age. It was creepy. And I don't think "ick" is what you go for in a Christmas movie. Couldn't they have made him her brother?

Are you kidding? I'm not even going to bother reviewing the story - a romcom's pretty much a romcom, so don't expect art. But there's nothing about this that even tries. Women do lumberjack competitions, but they train as hard as the men and are totally badass. We're supposed to buy that this little ball of fluff is going to grab an axe and just step in? Puh-leeze.

But the part that's really offensive is that this was shot in Ontario, on the other side of the country from the Rockies. Like, 3500 km away from the mountains that are Right Behind Them all through this movie. That's cynical and fraudulent. You wanna make a movie about (something) in the Rockies? The least you can do is buy a bus ticket and go there.

Is the guy playing her father really old enough to be her father? And is Trish Stratus supposed to be the same age as him, and therefore 20ish years older than her?

This TV romance is even less believable than usual. The movie is centred around a Lumberjack competition for $50,000. I found myself singing Monty Python's Lumberjack song as the movie went on. The acting is not good and the plot is corny as hell. Only watch if incredibly bored.