Natal Ás Escuras

As the message boards and the limited reviews have been somewhat merciless on this good-but-not-great movie, I feel duty bound to write a few good words.

I decided to invest a small amount of money on the film, because I was curious how James Roday would do outside of 'Psych' (which I have generally liked). But I had a pretty good experience watching the movie. Critical and audience reaction doubtless has reflected the fact that it is not a comedy, nor is it particularly warm (!). The writer-director (I believe) wanted to discuss a number of large life issues. (The movie actually might have worked better on some ordinary day, as very few of the subplots actually resolve with reference to the holiday).

Some of these are successful, some not. I particularly enjoyed the musicians in the elevator, and also doctors and patient. The scene with the five millenials (flaky girls, know-it-all, docent, and body builder) worked. So did the duo of Jon Heder and Max Casella. The solo of Patrick Stewart and the James Roday (sigh) did not work so well.

All that said, however, the different reactions of the trapped groups was interesting and dramatic. The critics' views that they are all unlikable is Grinch stuff. The reveals of the interconnections among them (done with some subtlety) were the script at its best.

All in all, a sort of Ship of Fools movie that ultimately worked, maybe because the formula is so strong. The critics and some of our acerbic friends on this site are way too negative.

Patrick Stewart is a diverse and lovable actor, one that can fit any role and be endearing to audience. The first flaw of many this movie has is secluding him form the rest of cast and makes him recites dull version of A Christmas Carol. The other plots are different groups of similarly pretentious characters trying to be humorous and delivering some warm message, all of which fail to do so.

This is several short stories woven together with one underlying theme; finding solace in unfavorable situation of confined in elevator. There are so many noises and gibberish, it just doesn't feel authentic in any way. Most of these characters speak and do things no ordinary person would even consider normal. Perhaps the movie would like audience to suspense judgement to these supposed colorful characters, but they are simply revolting.

Maybe only one or two of them are decent, and that's already an overstatement considering they rely so heavily on terrible script. If this is an attempt to build any connection then it's a misguided one. The photographer and random lady subplot is superbly awful, almost rude even. They are just silly in an attempt for mild romance which eventually ends up creepy and inauthentic.

There is actually a good cast here, they are just trapped in situation or company no one would like to see, let alone experience. The orchestra assembly stuck in one elevator is just too much, too crude and with no real focus. Jon Heder is pretty good, although he must content with horrible boss cliché. The one elevator that has some kind of heart is the hospital one, it sometimes looks real enough, however it's still lacking depth to present a drama of faith.

With so many angles and good cast, it's actually surprising that every single one of them is flawed. Having insipid script and appalling characters, it's better to be stuck on an elevator in real life than trapped watching this.

Sat down with the girlfriend thinking let's watch a Christmas movie, we were both excited by the idea of another funny Chrissy flick especially coming up to that time. We made a mistake. It cost us our night.

Absolute waste of time.. the reviews were a lot higher a few days ago which makes me think maybe it was the creator's friends jumping on? 2 stars for effort but this was nothing but frustrating and I can't for the life of me imagine who it might even appeal to.

It wasn't bad acting, it was simply unlikable characters with zero story line. Like a bunch of unfunny skit shows thrown together and no point.

WHY?! WHY would you make this?!

Doesn't matter how many times you've seen Jingle All The Way or The Santa Clause... Watch anything that made you laugh once, even for a 5th time over, before you even look at this "movie".

My first review ever on here...

I just had to warn the people.

Why?

This movie was hard to watch even when barely watching.

I can't wrap my head around how someone wrote this and thought it was good enough to make a movie out of, like it could compete with even the worst movie that already existed.

I can't wrap my head around the amount of people that gave this 2+ stars much less 10

It's not even funny bad.

I agree with another review that said the lone girl stuck in the elevator with the creepy dude was like watching a horror movie hoping she makes it out alive or at the very least, unharmed, and the writers tried to makes this romantic. Cringe.

It's very rare I find books or movies so bad I have a hard time finishing them. This is one of those times.

Out of all the movies that exist, literally not a single reason to watch this one.

WHY??????

Of course I had not heard about the 2015 movie "Christmas Eve" prior to sitting down to watch it here in 2024. But then again, I am not usually overly keen on sappy Christmas movies. But every now and again I do go all in December up until Christmas Eve and watch an abundance of these movies. And thus, I had the opportunity to sit down and watch "Christmas Eve", and so I did.

Truthfully, I wasn't really harboring the biggest of expectations to the movie. But perhaps writers Mitch Davis and Tyler McKellar would surprise me with the script that they churned out for the movie.

I have to say that I feel that "Christmas Eve" utterly and totally fell short of being a proper Christmas movie. I found no entertainment, enjoyment or interest in the narrative. I mean, people stuck in elevators and talking hardly constituted as being what I am looking for in Christmas movies. So this movie was a swing and a miss in terms of entertaining me.

The movie has some familiar faces on the cast list, such as Patrick Stewart, Jon Heder, Cheryl Hines, Steve John Shepherd, Taylor James and Gary Cole. Despite the fact that the storyline and script was falling short of entertaining me, then I will say that the acting performances were good.

This movie is definitely not a movie that I will return to watch a second time. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend people looking for Christmas movies to sit down and watch.

My rating of Mitch Davis's 2015 "Christmas Eve" lands on a three out of ten stars.