De l'amour pour Noël

The first 'A Golden Christmas' was rather average, with enough good things but significantly unbalanced by a truly over-the-top obnoxious lead character and actress. The second was an improvement and improved on a lot of things. So while expectations were not massive for 'A Golden Christmas 3', as sequels do have a variable reputations (often the third films in trilogies), there were hopes, especially as there are people saying it's the best of the three.

After seeing 'A Golden Christmas 3', actually do personally disagree with it being the best of the series. For me the second is the best, but this is a quite a close second best. Didn't love it, but certainly didn't hate it. Feelings were instead mixed to positive, with a lot of the good things seen in the first two films seen and like the second film it doesn't have the disadvantage of an overly negative female lead unbalancing the film. Just wish it could have been better.

Certainly 'A Golden Christmas 3' has good things. It is pleasant looking, especially the scenery inside and particularly out. The music generally doesn't sound cheap or over-bearing, and was clearly done by someone that knew what they were writing music for. The two leads are very engaging, with Nikki DeLoach particularly giving it her all. Their characters are neither too perfect and the negative character traits are not over-exaggerated.

Supporting cast generally were above average, with the roles not feeling overacted or underplayed. Also didn't feel annoyed by most of the characters and the dogs are adorable. There are enough cute and charming moments here and the chemistry had a warmth.

However, there are things that could have been done a lot better. Some of the script is very cheesy, especially in the early stretches which are also too slight in momentum. Do agree that there are too many musical montages that were generally not necessary and randomly placed.

Likewise with that the ex-boyfriend character is an overused stereotype that is very annoying and the only character that has negative characteristics that are overwritten. The story is very predictable and not always focused and the central relationship while charming and natural was too rushed in development.

In conclusion, slightly above average but not much mind-blowing here. 5.5/10.

The movie description say (Naval Officer). This is incorrect. The young man rank is 2nd Class Petty Officer. I know they went after the younger age group, but this would have been a much better movie if it were about a retired Chief Petty Officer or actual naval officer.

They could have gone with the theme of a Officer and Gentleman from 30 years ago. That might have worked. I still think it would have worked much better if they had gone with a more mature age group since they made it about the US military.

Shalom

Goldens here, Goldens there, Goldens everywhere.

This is a family friendly film with obvious appeal to young ages.

The story was all over the place. There is very little tension beyond the pending move to NYC by the leading lady. There are no real surprises. There's very little in the movie to do with Christmas.

There are too many musical montages. The very end of the movie is a nearly 8 minute roll interrupted by only two brief segments of conversation. Is that perhaps because the director didn't trust the actors? I wasn't impressed with any of the acting, but that could easily have been the dialogue which was bland and often didn't make sense. I was especially disappointed with Nikki Deloach who has since had many leading roles in movies like this, some of which included some great scenes having deep emotional content. In this movie, I thought she tried to hard.

The stalker ex-boyfriend is too annoying. It's troubling to see movies like this insert characters who do not understand that no is no and get away with it for far too long. After the last such scene, the ex goes off and trashes the leading lady with a superior attitude that something is wrong with her because she didn't worship him.

This is not an Academy Award winner. But it is a lovely movie to watch when you want something happy and cheerful. Be done with all the gore on TV. Watch something that leaves you with a wonderful feeling and smiling. Thank you thank you thank you. I have to admit though that I saw it as love for Christmas on Hallmark. Yes the sailor's uniform gave me a start because I thought it was wrong and it was, but who really cares. Hollywood gets a lot wrong. Smile and have fun

The high points in this one are solid, starting with the cast. With one exception, convincing performances all around. It's the best supporting cast I've seen in a Lifetime/Hallmark Christmas romance, from the female BFF to the older brother and the precocious tween niece.

There's plentiful good chemistry among them, with several laugh-aloud funny scenes.

The music was also above average, with extra points for skipping the most overused/annoying.

So far as shortcomings go, imo there are two biggies.

First, female lead Shantel VanSanten as Heather wasn't entirely awful, but pretty unconvincing at times. The writing is partly to blame-the character is so insubstantial I couldn't buy her as a director of any sort. She suffers by comparison to co-star Rob Mayes, who is head of the class among male actors in this genre.

Second, the plot was almost non-existent, even for a holiday romance. There were 4-count 'em 4!-montages, which is just lazy storytelling.

One side note: I accidentally DVRed the film twice due to the different titles; as 'Love for Christmas' on Lifetime and 'A Golden Christmas 3' on Ion. Ion sometimes listed it @ as LFC instead.

Under either title, the Ion version had an extra scene that was missing from the Lifetime version, and the 1st montage was roughly twice as long.