Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This film is a strange beast as it's better than the original first film. If you enjoyed the Christmas Shoes then you should enjoy this festive tale.Beware though, you will need a box of tissues for the ending: This is a heartwarming tearjerker which does just as it says. Even though the clichés are throughout the story; but then again isn't that just the case in Christmas films(?); I found myself reacting to the characters situations. It's the acting and direction that work the tears free from your eyes.I really liked the idea of "The Christmas Shoes" journey through the film. It is a little cheesy, but the world is a small place, and things like this can, and do, happen.Well worth watching on a cold winter's night, while cuddled up under a blanket, by a fire.

OK. When a movie is REALLY bad, I don't watch the whole thing. My threshold for bad movies is usually about 10 minutes---that's all I can take before I vomit, and that's a mess so I try to avoid that. I did watch this entire movie, so that's a plus. My fist suggestion: fire whoever did the casting for this movie. Neil Patrick Harris' "dad" looked younger than he did. Neil Patrick Harris' girlfriend looked way older than he did. Rob Lowe's character looked younger than Neil P. Harris'. Lydia, Neil's dad's girlfriend, looked way older than Neil's dad. The only person who was cast well was Angus T. Jones as Charlie. He looked the correct age. His "dad" looked more like his grandpa, however. Again, fire that caster. Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexican Independence Day. You have just spread another round of incorrect information that thousands will now be sharing and it results in an entire generation remaining ignorant. Cinco de Mayo was merely a battle. Mex. Ind. Day is September 16. Another point: when Neil P. Harris gets to the hospital and sees the boy that had been in the accident on the gurney, a gift falls out of the boy's pocket. Neil picks it up and puts it in his own pocket, and then we never see that gift again. Was something cut out of the movie? They made such a point of him picking it up that I felt sure it contained something important that we would see again. Not so. Cutting room floor? The writing could have been tighter. Such flawless and witty repartee does not come out of normal people's mouths. No one stuttered, no one cleared their throat, no one made a mistake. Unbelievable. My husband said it's the only "feel-good" Christmas movie he's ever seen that left him not "feeling good"---the child dies in the end. No blessing there! My husband was so depressed. It was exhausting to try to cheer him up. The movie was filmed well---it didn't have that "cheesy" look and feel that so many budget movies have. It also obviously did not have a boiler-plate plot, and the settings were very pretty. Again, this movie was not awful, but it could have been so much better had the producers done a better job with casting, more believable writing, and maybe a happy ending for everyone. Charlie's dad got no blessing, and he's the one that gave up the most.

We don't expect greatness from a TV movie. We understand it will have a predictable plot, lame dialog and low production values. And The Christmas Blessing does indeed have all those defects, but it also has problems that are far more profound. The Christmas Blessing repeatedly pushes away its audience by being internally inconsistent, eye-rollingly unbelievable and amateurish. My wife and I were in the mood to like this movie, but its flaws were so great that we didn't enjoy it.The first flaw is Casting! Neil Patrick Harris plays a surgeon who has returned home. Given that he is a surgeon, he must be in his 30s (or older), yet his Dad is played by Hugh Thompson, who also appears to be in his 30's (and who, by the way, looks nothing like Neil Patrick Harris.) "Father and Son" look so clearly to be about the same age that my wife and I kept shaking our heads in disbelief every time they were shown together.And another major character, a 10-year old boy, has a father who is played by Shaun Johnson, who looks in this film to be in his mid-50s. The casting of these two father/son combinations is so incongruous -so ridiculous - that it destroys any "suspension of disbelief" that a sympathetic audience might have.The second major flaw is the story-telling. We meet a 10-year-old boy, played by Angus Jones, who is depicted as a lonely but normal boy who is good at basketball. Later in the movie, we learn (in totally unconvincing medical scenes) that he has been long diagnosed with a severe cardiac condition that will likely be fatal. Wow, that's a surprise, completely inconsistent with how the boy has been depicted Remarkably, the female lead character has a similar issue. We have followed this female character for the entire film -she jogs constantly and has appeared to be healthy - and she has been dating the surgeon character. In the film's last 20 minutes, she suddenly faints. The healthy lady jogger and her surgeon boyfriend discover that she has an undiagnosed liver condition that requires constant hospitalization and is untreatable and terminal. Her surgeon boy-friend never noticed anything -no jaundice, no symptoms - no signs at all of illness. But we are now asked to believe that, out of the blue, she is dieing and her only hope is a liver transplant.What lazy story-telling! What ever this TV movie was intended to be, it ultimately comes across as nothing more than a shallow attempt to manipulate the emotions of its viewers.Lastly, The Christmas Blessing depicts the medical profession and illness in a completely unrealistic way. For example, shortly after her life-saving liver transplant, the patient is visited by her boyfriend at her hospital bed - and she is shown as being completely recovered from her transplant. There is no pain, no weakness, no fatigue and no IV tubes! She is seemingly ready to go jogging in a day or two, as if she had received a pedicure rather than a liver transplant. It is mind-boggling - the kind of lapse you might forgive in a grade school play but not in a TV movie.Yucch, The Christmas Blessing is a real clunker of a film - it is really bad even as measured against the low standards of Hallmark/Lifetime movies. Stay away!

As we follow a certain pair of red shoes from the earlier TV movie "The Christmas Shoes" (2002), handsome lawyer Rob Lowe (as Robert Layton) appears briefly. He'll reappear later, but does not play a significant role in this sequel. This time, our hero is boyish doctor Neil Patrick Harris (as Nathan Andrews). He promises to see that a teenage patient is home for Christmas, but the young man unfortunately expires during surgery. Angrily throwing his doctor's smock down in the hospital hallway, Mr. Harris declares. "I can't do this anymore!" He goes home to live and work with auto mechanic father Hugh Thompson (as Jack Andrews). Playing "stick up" with Mr. Thompson further establishes Harris has some late-term growing up to do...While helping dad in the shop, Harris meets attractive single teacher Rebecca Gayheart (as Meghan Sullivan). Felled by a flat tire - a surefire way to find a date in TV movies - Ms. Gayheart thinks Harris is a "cute mechanic." She is learning to speak Spanish in order to be a better teacher, but tells her Vermont, USA class Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in Mexico as their Independence Day. The students are either too polite to correct her, or afraid to speak and be asked to leave the set. The main pupil is imaginatively bright, chubby and sad preteen Angus T. Jones (as Charlie Bennett). He is being raised by alcoholic single landscaper Shaun Johnston (as Tucker Bennett). All of the aforementioned characters have physical and/or emotional flaws...The holy spirit of Christmas, without being too heavy-handed, seems to bring the characters together. Some may live and some may die - but all will benefit from getting to know each other. God is a fan of tear-jerking melodramas, obviously, and Heaven isn't such a bad fate for believers. It is tempting to knock "The Christmas Blessing" for mediocrity and predictability, but each of the stories in the movie series accomplishes something that is becoming increasingly rare - character-driven drama without bombastic special effects. The plots and characters created by novelist Donna Van Liere are handled well by the production team and actors. Lord knows you could find less engaging ways to spend your viewing time, without even looking.****** The Christmas Blessing (12/18/05) Karen Arthur ~ Neil Patrick Harris, Rebecca Gayheart, Angus T. Jones, Hugh Thompson