Director: Tommy Wirkola
Cast: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder
Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Had half an inkling to go see it in the theater, and now that it is available on Peacock, I ran out of reasons to stop.
By the way, Peacock has spoiled me on the ad supported movie services. They front-load all of their ads, while literally every other service that has ads, is jamming them in the middle of the movie. I love you Peacock, and I didn’t think I would. And this is only kind of about you guys footing the bill for the Community movie.
Did I Like It: For some reason, I thought this was a horror movie as I went into it, which seems silly now that I think about it. Instead, it’s not just the best argument against Die Hard (1988) being considered a Christmas movie, it’s just about the only cogent argument that can claim an even baseline level of cogency.
Aside from the fact that the movie takes the Die Hard model and injects it into a story more directly at home with the themes of the Christmas holiday (giving of gifts, frustration with family members, presence of any children whatsoever, and expressing even a small degree of disappointment with the holiday), it isn’t offering much new. The notion of Santa (Harbour, shaking off any stink he might have gotten on him from trying to be Hellboy) in an unassailably adult action picture, coupled with a suddenly tragic backstory for the legend is all new. But literally everything else screams a quick pitch of “Die Hard, but with Santa.” Even the supporting cast feels like ideas Rian Johnson might have scratched out while writing Knives Out (2019) or Glass Onion (2022).
It’s probably unreasonable to expect much more from a film. In all reality, it was selling a particular bill of goods, and delivered those precisely. Come for Harbour’s performance, stay for the Harbour performance. Everything will work out fine.