The Christmas Chronicles is a 2018 comedy about a sister and brother whose Christmas Eve plan to catch Santa Claus on camera turns into an unexpected journey that most kids could only dream about.
Forced to churn out Holiday specials of some sort every year, studios must scramble for fresh ideas on a theme that doesn’t have much wiggle room from the start. How many times can we see a dysfunctional family wackily make it through the season? Or a young woman find love in the arms of that handsome fill-in-the-blanks. Or see some iteration of Santa need help to restore the Christmas spirit? This year, plenty of the same ol’ same ol’ crowds the digital streaming shelves with Netflix piling on a whole new batch, including Clay Kaytis‘ The Christmas Chronicles, a by-the-book entry with a few interesting twists that don’t really make it all that memorable, even if does as intended.
Starting with a video montage of a happy little family, covering ten years in the early lives of Teddy (Judah Lewis) and Kate (Darby Camp), we learn that older brother and little sister have grown apart, especially in the last year after their father (Oliver Hudson) passed away. This leaves their exacerbated mother (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) to raise them. However, on Christmas Eve, she has to do a shift on the hospital, putting Teddy in charge. The siblings already on each other’s nerves, soon find common ground, deciding to set up the camcorder and try to film the actual Santa Claus. Guess what? They do. And soon enough, they are on a trip of a lifetime when Santa (Kurt Russell) needs their help to save Christmas after his sleigh crashes and he loses his sack of presents.
Aimed squarely at the ten-year-old crowd, at least in concept, a lot of the humor is targeted higher with a whole slew of it that’ll go over their heads (a late cameo will mean nothing to the kids but should get a smile out of Russell fans), not to mention a rather noticeable mean streak that cuts through a few significant moments. What’s more, there’s nothing inspiring (or timeless) about a Santa that says ‘fake news’ in a Christmas movie.
He is unconventional to be sure, keeping the red suit and white beard but ditching the bowl full of jelly and the ho-ho-ho’s. This is a Santa for the modern age and there’s no doubt kids will find Russell’s charms amusing, the guy’s a natural good time and is clearly enjoying himself (even breaking into song). But with car chases, gangland threats of violence, and police interrogations, it’s a little hard to find the usual warmth this kind of movie is meant to have.
Most of this is not really all that new. Santa has been ‘modernized’ plenty of times before, with his sleigh getting all all kinds of gadgets over the years. To the film’s credit, that’s not really the point, the movie putting most of its efforts in Chicago, where Santa is stranded, a majority of that behind bars leaving Teddy and Kate to search for the reindeer and sack. Fortunately, Lewis and Camp are well cast and seem to ‘get’ the gist of the whole thing, Camp especially convincing as a little kid swept into some astonishing magic (even if most of it doesn’t make sense). Too bad the movie didn’t give that angle more attention.
There is a third act twist full of the expected magical wonder as little animated elves make an appearance, helping a bit to get the holiday fun on track, but even they are forced into acts of jarring violence that seem really unnecessary and truthfully, as one of these elves wields a chainsaw like a horror movie maniac, bound to freak out a few youngsters in the audience. What were the filmmakers thinking?
Either way, The Christmas Chronicles isn’t all bad, with a few solid moments that are sure to spark some imagination. I guess that’s all you can hope for these days, and certainly, Russell’s energy might be just enough to make this a short hit but most likely nothing that’ll make it a tradition.