All I Want for Christmas (2013)
After being told by her boss that the company needs to attract more clients, Elizabeth, a skilled executive, meets one of Santa’s helpers, who blesses her with an extraordinary gift allowing Elizabeth to hear everyone’s unspoken thoughts. While first using her new-found power to get ahead at work, she soon learns to become a better person, turning an office rivalry into romance while learning the true meaning of Christmas along the way.
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Just what I expected
Good concept, poorly executed.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
I really shouldn't bother commenting because I recognize that this movie is simply holiday schedule filler featuring actors that don't get cast very often. And I admit I watched only the first 10 minutes. But those 10 minutes were enough to get me to turn off the TV and head to IMDb to comment. I'm going to blame the writers and director rather than the cast for how awful it was. Melissa Sagemiller's Elizabeth is so abrasive and unprofessional that not only would she not be an ad agency vice-president, she wouldn't even be employed. And the repeated drink spilling gag: I guess it's lucky for the characters that the only beverage in their universe is room temperature water served in coffee cups because no one screamed in pain from being scalded or got their clothes stained. There was a profound amount of lazy film making just in the opening 3 scenes and I assumed things would go downhill from there.
Typical Christmas-romance where self-infatuated girl meets the guy of her dreams during a coffee spill incident. Through the help of an elf, she obtains a mind-reading jewelry device that allows her to become more self-aware in order to find personal and professional fulfillment. The relationship between Elizabeth (Melissa Sagemiller) and Robert (Brad Lowe) feels forced. The remaining cast seem like bit players. I don't know why Tom Arnold was in the movie as his character adds nothing to the story. However, Martin Klebba as Calvin the Elf makes the movie enjoyable and his segments serve as the storyline anchor to keep things moving along.This movie is a lot like holiday candy. It's satisfying while you watch it, but you will be craving something more substantial soon after it's over. It's worth watching once if nothing better is on TV.
These kinds of "uplifting" family-oriented movies sometimes tend to be a bit on the cheesy side, but this one was extremely moldy. Wow. Bad, woody dialog. Plot holes big enough to drive a semi-truck through. Undeveloped characters. Actors who can't act. Characters who act without motivation. Even for a fantasy movie, the relationships between characters isn't believable.Tom Arnold, the only recognizable actor in the movie, must have been really hard up for some pocket change. Even his three brief appearances come across as stiff, lacking sincerity, and awkward. My wife had control of the remote, so I could only hold my nose through the last third of this stinker.