Christmas Spirit (2012)

Pretty Good

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The gem of an idea get ruined in this television production. In this film a teenager gets visited by a "Christmas Spirit". This kid is not exactly full of "Christmas Cheer" but he isn't a bad kid. He is an only child to a single mother. One day he gets a visit from a spirit that he MUST show another family the joy of Christmas. Not knowing how to do that he must wing it. THe spirit tells him to "follow the signs" and he will find the destination! She then hands him a fortune cookie that helps lead the way! Sounds great right. The kid must travel and look for signs. What a great funny set up. Can imagine the stranger on the bus looking at him. He getting the signs wrong. Great Right! Well it never happens. The TV Budget limits this film to just one location. We go from his home to his destination. The film took too many short cuts. The film could of been great, But it becomes predictable and boring. Kids might like this but adults will just be bored. What could of been a funny and heartwarming story becomes another forgettable Christmas movie. This film had a great and funny idea. This however a film with an idea that should be re-explored. A bigger budget would help. A longer journey for Riley should be on the agenda if someone does remake this. If you come across this film pass on it!!

It has 2 titles I noticed. It is too bad that some Scrooge slammed a perfectly good movie because he got his panties in a wad over a title. This movie is respectfully accurate for the genre, even if not so much about the dog's age. The dog is an integral part of the movie though.I enjoy curling up in bed with the dogs and taking in a few of these movies this time of year. The guy who plays the husband is gorgeous. I kept trying to place the house in Malibu and I think I do know which one it is. That makes it fun too. It's a quirky romantic, fantasy Christmas movie. Merry Christmas!

Here is a movie they titled "Christmas Puppy" and showed a Lab Puppy with a Santa hat on the cover. This dog never appeared in the movie and in fact there was NO PUPPY in it. There was one dog in it however a senior maltese mix that was so old it never got off of it's doggy bed the whole movie. I blame Netflix because Netflix controls what it chooses to air. Other than that you can watch some terrible acting and a movie that looked like it was shot using an iphone. I won't knock each of the actors appearing in this movie as a paycheck is a paycheck. There was however a look-a-like Angela Lansbury and phony Mike Schmidt in it. They did manage to get the real Marcia Brady and an old Baywatch chick. WOW, what a stinker. I thought Netflix could get no worse, I was wrong.

My family and I watched this movie on Netflix where it was called "A Christmas Puppy" and had a picture of a lab puppy with a bow around it. My daughter loves puppies so we went ahead and turned this on. About 20 minutes into the movie we kept asking ourselves, "where is the puppy"? The movie itself featured a bad story, bad acting, bad writing, and laughable special effects; all this would have been forgivable if it had entertained our children but alas it did not. I can't recommend this movie unless you and your friends want to have a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" type of experience. Taken in that context these types of movies can be very enjoyable.