A Christmas Story 2 (2012)

I think there was some other sequel to "A Christmas Story" but this is the only one with a "2" in the title so I'll just review this. Well, this is the end of Christmas Month. I couldn't find enough Christmas movies for the full month. I'll start next with Book Month! Anyway, this film is bad because it lacks all the heart of the original. The premise just doesn't work as Ralphie was so charming as a little kid.It doesn't have nearly the sense of timelessness as the original. The characters in this are just plain annoying. I especially hate Ralphie's friends because they're so dumb. These guys do such incompetent things on their jobs like putting one's mouth through a tube for no reason other than to reference the first movie. I personally didn't find it as bad as "The Sandlot 2" but it's still devoid of sense, especially with how this family somehow affords a car at the end. *1/2

In 2012, A Christmas Story had already become a staple of American culture, and it was EVERYWHERE. Clothes, props, a play, even friggin' fudge (get it?) And it was no surprise that a sequel would be made.In November 2012, we got A Christmas Story 2. I remember hearing about this and just being like "Meh. Whatever.", since I wasn't really a fan of the film at the time. Then, I began to see what horrible reviews it got, so that was enough to peak my curiosity, and last year, I finally saw this thing (after I saw the original, of course.)First off, my thoughts on the original: It's a good film. It certainly does put you in a child's perspective. I now see why everybody loves it. (If only the people marketing this stuff could see that.) Now, we get to this movie, hoo boy. First thing, this was on TV A LOT last year, so I just saw it on one of the airings, although I did rent it from the library, but the DVD skipped. So, our plot is that Ralphie is now 16 and he wants what every 16-year-old wants for Christmas, a car. Of course. He also wants to woo a girl at his school named Drucilla. That's fine and all, but we can't have fine, how about we repeat the same things that made the original great in this film? Yeah, my main gripe with this film is that it tries to "recapture the greatness" of the original... By repeating the same stuff. The Old Man still is having a neverending battle with the furnace (five years later?), Ralphie's mom still overdresses Randy, Flik gets his tongue stuck to something (or, in something in this case), and of course, many uses of the phrase "Son of a bitch!" Pitiful.In my opinion, if you want to capture the essence of the predecessor, you have to take what made it great, and step it up a bit, not repeat the same things. Now, this movie is an obvious cash grab. It was made at a time where A Christmas Story was insanely popular. It tries too hard to recapture the fun of the original, and offers barely anything new. But with all this hating, at least they were trying. They were at least trying with the sets and props. They at least tried to make it look like the '40s. They also try to shove in some Christmas morals. That's all good. It also has that good Christmas-y heart feel to it, where everything turns out in the end.So, horrible movie, but it has heart and at least tried.

One of my favorite (and certainly my favorite Christmas movie) movies is A Christmas Story. I watched this "squeal" expecting a Trolls 2 (of which there is no Trolls 1). However, while the movie does not deliver on that Jean Shepherd voice over or short stories beauty...it is actually not a terrible film. It honors Shepherds characters, but does NOT convey his short story presentation. The movie is good by our low modern standards, but OH how we miss great minds like Shepherd's. While a cat can be entertained by transformers 14 "things blow up and this movie has no point other and the writers have the IQs of a 3 year old" (working title), we are so missing minds like Shepards'.

Jean Shepherd has got to be spinning in his grave. I haven't read his books, but we've watched the original "A Christmas Story" 20 - 30 times. To say it is only a movie or forget about comparisons and just take it as something new and just 4 fun is a symptom of a society that has lost its soul. The richness of the writing of the 1982 original (somebody mentioned there are parts of #2 that are taken from Shepherd's stories, and I think I can guess which--I would bet the visit to the dentist, one of the few funny moments) is not just a hard act to follow, but a national treasure. The original transports us back to another time when the world and especially this country were qualitatively different than it is now. Every detail, the cast, every nuance, the whole aesthetic, gels to remove us from the cynicism and political correctness and every other aspect of Today to a world that some of us can remember, almost remember, or at least, imagine we remember. The would-be sequel fails completely to understand, much less appreciate, the beauty or depth of this magic. The cast is all wrong. Crudeness was a part of that era, but it was configured in a totally different way from the 1-dimensional postmodern context which this one is locked into. The demon White Male stereotype this buys into is devoid of any comprehension whatsoever of the character Darren McGavin so perfectly portrayed. The costumes are still from 5 years earlier, not counting Ralphie's 1980s giant eyeglasses, which didn't yet exist in the years this story is supposedly set in. This one was cranked out by commercial crapsters incapable of escaping a temporal tunnel vision that has no business attempting to recapture any era that has gone by before their own time. The acting is mostly godawful. Seems like the only times it improves a bit are scenes where it appears that they finally got a bit tired of yelling their lines. The meanness of some of the acting or characters in the original was purposeful--it showed a child's perception of them, not actual cruelty. In this one, it's all just crude and stupid. The only reason to see version 2 is as a kind of cultural monitor, to compare and contrast, hopefully to learn the differences between great art and a total failure to grasp what art is.