Mrs. Magill and I DVRed it and started watching it last night. After an hour, she decided she’d rather pay bills. That is not a good sign.
How awful was it?
Make up? - Sucked. At least get the prosthetics close to the actor’s skin tone. Harvey Fierstein’s nose looked like it should have gone on Eddie Griffin.
Song? - Sucked. They managed to suck the life out a stop-motion animation number. With Michael McKeen and Harvey Fierstein and Cold Miser and Heat Miser, I had higher hopes.
Kid/Dad subplot? - Totally unnecessary. Obviously a TV exec had them shove it in there. “We gotta have an eleventh hour conversion of someone.”
Chris Katan? - At one point, Mrs Magill turned to me and said she hoped Heat Miser’s minions dismembered him. And what the hell was up with his pink eye? It made my eyes water just looking at it.
There was one good part. As the two elfs were pondering their future, Eddie Griffin turns to his friend and says, “My cousin is a dentist on the Island of Misfit Toys, maybe he’ll give me a job.”
Sure, it may have been a good idea, but in application… boy, did it suck reindeer balls.
First, it had none of the music of the Rankin/Bass production, save the Heatmiser/Coldmiser song (which was probably the best 2 minutes of the show). And I thought Michael McKeon made a decent Coldmiser.
But man, was this thing unfunny. I wanted to pluck my eyes out. The jokes were terrible, the workaholic father/mayor was a terrible cliche, the kid actor was terrible, Chis Katan was unbearable… the thing was just a mess.
It had the look of a really bad TV movie. Which it was, mind you, but I had hoped for something better, epecially considering the fairly impressive cast they had assembled. This thing needs to be burned and the ashes thrown in a deep hole. Then the hold needs to be filled. Then anyone who knows where the hole is needs to be shot and burned and buried as well.
The sets were horrible. Either bad “locations”, really bad green screen or really, really bad backdrops. I’ve seen better in High School plays. And what was up with Santa’s Beard? Obviously thin cotton web on a string glued randomly to his face. Some scenes high, some low.
I watched it on fast forward and still feel like I wasted part of my life.
I was forced to watch because a relative of my wife has a major role in the movie. It was awful. I actually haven’t gotten all the way through it yet, but I can’t delete it because of the family connection. I need to be able to discuss it intelligently at Christmas.
John Goodman was particularly disappointing. I usually like him.
Just out of curiosity, which role does your wife’s relative play? I actually thought that the actress who played Iggy’s mother wasn’t terrible. In fact, only a couple of the actual performances were really bad (the boy, Delta Burke, Goodman). The biggest problem was the horrible, horrible script. It was nice to see Carol Kane.
Most TV-movies run in a two hour time slot due to commercials. I presume if there was a sponsor willing to foot the bill it could run commercial-free, but who would want to lend their name to something like this?
I was actually going to start a thread about a week ago titled “cast a rankin-bass live-action movie”.
I was going to do A Year Without Santa Clause. Elton John as Heat Miser. Christoper Walken as Cold Miser. Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd (the hobbits) as Jingle and Jangle.
etc.
I first saw it Monday night on NBC. I had every intention of getting on here 15 minutes after it started to warn the time zones west of me to avoid it at all costs. It was painful to watchh from the start. The last person in our house turned it off before the first hour was done (and we are all big fans of the animated special.)
I’ll have to ask him if he got to see it.