The Christmas Chronicles

Ein weiterer durchschnittlicher Film von Netflix im weihnachtlichen Gewand. Er beleidigt nicht und begeistert nicht, vielleicht aber ist er stellenweise herzergreifend. Ich glaube, dass Kurt Russell die Dreharbeiten sehr genossen hat. Seine Rolle passt wirklich zu ihm und gehört zum Besten, was der ganze Streifen zu bieten hat. Teil zwei soll besser sein, auch wegen der Verbindung mit seiner guten alten Kollegin Goldie Hawn. (07.11.2020)

This film is terribly half-assed. It has lots of original ideas and a great Santa played by an energetic Kurt Russell, but also uninteresting direction and an uneven pace, so it becomes boring whenever the story deviates a bit longer from the jolly bearded fellow. For a new Christmas movie is good, but it was set for a far more entertaining ride that would not shift so often from a nice action speed down to an ordinary family neutral. 60% (04.12.2018)

Basically it's an American variation on the Christmas movies with Doctor Who. It's playful, it has a solid fast pace and it's just Christmas-catching in the right places in a specific way that only works at Christmas. After all, during other time of the yeas it is pointless to watch Perhaps it's just an unreasonably long movie, sadly, and the best scene (in a restaurant) is shown too soon, but Kurt enjoys Santa “macho" so much that he doesn't mind those few (tens) minutes above the more reasonable footage. That is, except for the passages with the annoyingly infantile “Mimon´s style" elves, who fit into the chosen style as smoothly as Halina Pawlowská's foot in Cinderella's shoe, I mean it doesn´t fit at all. (26.12.2018)

Netflix tried its hand at Christmas comedies, making a chill-out piece where Santa Claus is portrayed by Kurt Russell. And I don’t know what more should I say, because this means that the quality of such a movie is guaranteed. For an American comedy, it’s quite a Christmas experience I haven’t had in a while, and I was happy to have it this year. The whole time I was wondering whether Kurt’s beard was real or fake… they masked him so well that he was indistinguishable from a real Santa :-). (11.12.2019)

I was dreading this would be much sweeter and gooier. There was melodrama (obviously – it was an American film about Christmas!), but it was bearable. A bigger problem was that the film stopped working for me when Kurt Russell wasn't on screen. The second major problem for me were the elves. I really didn't like them and they ruined my impression of the whole film – which is why I only give three stars. (30.12.2019)