A Very Brady Christmas (1988)

Thanks for the memories!

Good concept, poorly executed.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A Very Brady Christmas (1988) ** (out of 4) Instead of going on a vacation to Greece, Carol and Mike Brady (Florence Henderson, Robert Reed) decide to instead invite the six kids and their families to a Christmas dinner. What the parents don't fully know is that all six are facing certain issues that will come out over the holiday. A VERY BRADY Christmas is a pretty silly and pretty stupid little picture but fans of the original TV show should still find it entertaining. I remember watching the show as a kid and enjoying it even though it certainly didn't represent any sort of real life that I knew. This film once again offers up the basic idea of the series, which is that everyone faces a problem but at the end the father will give a speech that makes everyone see things the correct way. I think the biggest thing working against the movie is that they just have so much to do in such little time and this makes for some pacing issues. We basically see Mike and Carol. We then are introduced to the six kids and their problems. Everyone comes together and one by one the problems are solved. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking here but it was still a fun way to get the original cast members to return (with the exception of Cindy) and fans should enjoy seeing them together. Both Henderson and Reed haven't missed a beat in their parts and the kids all do fine as well. Ann B. Davis, on the other hand, is pretty annoying here but this is certainly the fault of the screenplay more than anything else. A VERY BRADY Christmas isn't good enough to watch on a regular basis but it's still got enough bad charm that makes it worth watching just to see the cast members back in action.

Just saw this for the first time tonight and I really enjoyed it! The flashback of Susan Olsen by Jennifer Runyon was sure strange though! Now, let's see for the cast:*Florence Henderson was great as Mrs. Brady as before. *Robert Reed is still the same as before too. *Ann B. Davis as the wisecracking Alice returns, but this time, she is suffering from an unhappy Marriage. *Maureen McCormick still impresses me as the beautiful Marcia. *Eve Plumb is wonderfully geeky-ish as Jan. *Jennifer Runyon does quite a decent job at taking over the role of Cindy from Susan Olsen, who was unavailable for filming. *Barry Williams is in top-notch form as Greg, the movie's 'hero'-type character. *Chris Knight as Peter is now a young heart-throb and doing the hippidy-dippidy with his hot boss. *Michael Lookinland brings a new version of Bobby to the screen as Bobby is now racing cars against his parents will!Oh, also, cast members from "THE BRADY BRIDES": Jerry Houser and Ron Kuhlman are added to the regular cast and both Wally (Houser) and Philip (Kuhlman) are facing problems of their own. The story lines presented here are slightly more serious than those we were shown before in "THE BRADY BUNCH" and "THE BRADY BRIDES", but there is one hilarious moment where Philip messes up one of Jan's rug's by jumping up and down and stomping on the ground like a child, now that was funny stuff indeed!All the great ingredients for a brilliant bunch of fun! I highly recommend this movie to all viewers as it is pure and natural comic gold.

This is just awful crap, and it's a testament to the last 30 years of the decline in American artistic taste that people have actually written in to say how much they like it and want to buy it on DVD. God, this thing is dripping in so much schmaltz and rotten jokes it defies the law of averages. But the awful writing is outpaced by the acting. Leading the pack is Jerry Houser, who just might be the worst actor God ever put on the face of the earth. He's simply execrable. His performance makes my teeth grind involuntarily. Or how about when Alice returns and says that her butcher hubby Sam left her for another woman, and it happened after he volunteered to "come over and check her rump roast." Ye Gods!! The usual awful Brady stuff is in place, and Cindy Olsen dodged a huge bullet with this one. Somebody posted a comment that she wasn't in the show because she was getting married in real life. I thought it was because they wouldn't offer her enough money. I'm sure if she'd wanted to be in this terrible film, they would have adjusted the schedule ever so slightly if she was getting hitched. Maybe Cindy wanted more money, but a million dollars wouldn't have been enough to warrant doing it. The guy playing Jan's husband is a real loser too. And how about the scene when Dr. Greg Brady and his nurse-wife go all gooey on each other, making stupid medical (bad) double entendres. I think you can see Robert Reed's AIDS starting to affect him, too, which is really sad. Watching any Brady show is like watching a train wreck, and in that this made-for-TV film surely measures up. People always laughed and said the creators did it this way on purpose: well, that ain't anything to be proud of. Can we somehow destroy all the prints of this embarrassment?

I was a big fan of the Brady Bunch show when it was on and I was young and naive. I, just as most who watched it, knew it wasn't realistic. We knew it wasn't how most families interact etc. but we liked it just the same. When I watched this in 1988, I was disappointed. It was very well done but I guess the Brady Bunch, as many shows, was good only in its time so when reunions/updates are done, it does not have much impact - at least that's how I felt about this one. The best part was seeing (hearing) a Brady use the the word "hell!" Christopher Knight, as Peter, tells one of his siblings (I don't recall which) "That's a hell of a way to greet your brother" or something to that effect. Way to go Peter! That added some much needed realism to a show that even the most ardent fans will concede lacked realism. If I see it in my listings during the holiday season, I may check it out again but I did not care for it the first time so I doubt that will change.