Who payed the critics

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Having dug into the history of Christmas in Wonderful to find out who made it and where, it turns out to be an ABC Original Movie, a lot of which tend to be hit and miss at the best of times which is sadly a trend of TV movies in general.Christmas in Wonderland is, as another reviewer stated, essentially Home Alone at the Mall. There is some potential here, but the presence of the late Patrick Swayze and the omni-present Tim Curry doesn't make up for a script full of clumsy dialogue, predictable setups/outcomes and stereotypically "thick" bad guys. There is a scene where a door is opened to reveal some really tacky CGI creation - it may shatter your suspension of disbelief.Acting wise, pretty much up to TV movie standards really, even from the likes of Swayze and Curry. Cameron Bright also makes an appearance in Christmas in Wonderland but takes stereotypical moody 16 year old teenagers to an extreme. Matthew Knight, as the younger boy, does a wonderful job and is clearly steering this vehicle to the point where he was nominated for Best Performance in a DVD film - a nomination which says it all about the rest of the film.Watchable, but needed more script work and is an example of something that could have benefited from a bigger budget.

If you read this far in the reviews, don't give up on this one. We have so few movies made by Patrick and this was made during his fight with cancer. I believe he made one other, Powder Blue. I watched Christmas in Wonderland for that reason. But was really happy that I did. I thought he was great. As a fan I remembered having read about them making it, and worried that he would be sick and unable to finish the movie. It is a good family Christmas movie. And there are not enough of them. And it is a sweet way to say goodbye to the memory of a great actor that is truly missed. Maybe because I like the other actor, I disagree with other reviews also, about Tim Curry. And think he is really funny doing the Scottish accent. This movie was a treat. It's fun for kids. If you start to watch it for those reasons, instead of being critical, you will have been blessed. Do not miss it. Peace out.

I was warned by the reviewers on IMDb not to see this film, but I did decide to give it a chance for two reasons; Patrick Swayze and Tim Curry. My thoughts on watching Christmas in Wonderland were that while there were some good moments, the film could've been much better. It is a long way from being the best movie ever and from being a Christmas classic like Scrooge(1951), Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alones 1 and 2 and It's a Wonderful Life, but personally I do not think it's the worst ever either, Disaster Movie, Home Alone 4, NeverEnding Story 3, Cat in the Hat and Superbabies:Baby Geniuses 2 were much worse.So what were the good things? Well the soundtrack was one. The incidental music was not bad, but I liked very much the song choices. Christmas in Wonderland is certainly memorable, same with Not So Zen. But my favourite is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, the timeless tear jerker, immortalised by Judy Garland in the musical Meet Me in St Louis. It was nice to see the West Edmonton Mall too. Also Mary's conversation with Santa twenty minutes into the movie was the closest to heartwarming Christmas in Wonderland got, likewise with the moralising between Wayne and the imaginary Santa in the bar. While I do agree that the writing was not very good at all on the most part, there are one or moments of inspired physical comedy. No I am not talking about the crooks chasing the kids on the escalator, I am chiefly talking about Carmen Electra's character Ginger after falling into the water having a hard time with the seal. That was funny, shame the whole film, while starting off ever so promisingly, didn't have the same kind of momentum.Before mentioning the cons, I am going to talk about the performances and start with the good ones first. Most of the acting was terrible, and while the more decent performances were anything but outstanding, there were one or two bright spots in the cast, particularly the two lead kids. Matthew Knight is quite appealing as Brian, and his sister Mary is played by the adorable Schlagel twins Amy and Zoe. And Tim Curry, the wonderful and underrated actor he is, is actually quite entertaining as the memory-challenged McLoosh. Critics were divided on Curry's performance, others praised him as one of the few bright spots of the movie, others complained of his performance being full of sheer pantomimic excess. I would be inclined to agree with the former, while he does overact a bit, and his Scottish accent leaves much to be desired(though the accent is infinitely better than Jon Voight's German accent in Superbabies:Baby Geniuses 2), he at least makes some effort to make the most of the questionably meagre material he was given, and his facial expressions were priceless.However, the other performers weren't that much better. Whereas in general I enjoyed Tim Curry's performance, I was disappointed with Swayze. Perhaps this movie would have been forgotten, if it weren't for the fact that it was one of Swayze's last performances before he sadly died. He wasn't terrible, but the script gave him very little to do so no matter how hard he tried it was a bit of a wasted effort. Cameron Bright as Danny gives a very lifeless and monotonic performance; there were times when I wanted to give him a kick up the backside. Chris Kattan and Preston Lacy step into their roles with enthusiasm but like Swayze they weren't given that much to do. That leaves Carmen Electra. While I wanted to see this movie for Swayze and Curry, I was hesitant as well because of Electra. Sorry, I can't stand her, I just don't think she can act, and a lot of the characters she plays are more of the same. She was marginally better than she was in Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans, both movies in which she was truly terrible, but that is not saying much.Other problems I had with Christmas in Wonderland was that the script, no matter how physical-comedy engineered it was, was clunky and devoid of humour, and gave the actors little to work with- a lot of the "funny" lines just weren't funny. The repeated gag about McLoosh forgetting everyone's names was funny the first couple of times, but it got tiresome, an oft-danger with repeated gags. Then there's the formulaic and utterly predictable plot and the fact, it looks like in terms of camera work etc. direct to video quality. The direction from James Orr ranged from sloppy to non-existent, the love story between Danny and Shane was underdeveloped and out-of-the blue and the CGI I agree was rather fake and amateurish. All in all, has some good moments, heavy emphasis on the some, but it is mediocre. Showed good promise, but didn't deliver in most aspects. 4.5/10 Bethany Cox

I DVR'd the movie, and before watching it I read the review comments posted . . . and then I foolishly watched the movie anyway. Saying this movie is BAD is giving it too much credit. The terrible writing is only accentuated by the terrible acting.The one redeeming thing was seeing the Edmonton Mall. I've heard lots about it but we've never made it up there. It's a shame some of the stores probably lost customers when they were shooting the movie. Hope they were well compensated for any loss.Final word . . . If you have an open two hours and are thinking of watching this movie, don't do it. Instead, read a book.