Movie Info
Movie Name: A Christmas Story 2
Studio: Warner Premiere
Genre(s): Comedy/Seasonal/Family
Release Date(s): October 30, 2012
MPAA Rating: PG
He’s too old for the rabbit costume…put him in a deer costume
Ralphie Parker (Braeden Lemasters) is about to turn sixteen and his favorite holiday is approaching. Ralph has his brother Randy (Valin Shinyei) obsessed with Buck Rogers and his father “The Old Man” (Daniel Stern) is bent on fixing the furnace despite the pleas from Ralphie’s mother (Stacey Travis) who wishes he’d be less frugal. When Ralph and his friends Flick (David W. Thompson) and Schwartz (David Buehrle) accidentally wreck a car for sale on a lot, Ralph must find a way to come up with the money before the holidays.
Directed by Brian Levant, A Christmas Story 2 is a holiday family movie. The direct-to-DVD follow-up to the 1983 classic A Christmas Story is based on the writings of Jean Shepherd. The movie was panned by critics and fans of the original.
Return of the Leg!
Despite this being called “a sequel” to A Christmas Story, for obvious reasons, none of the original cast were involved due to the years that have passed. Also, this isn’t the first sequel to the film (nor was the first film the first appearance of the characters)…The Phantom of the Open Hearth (1976), The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters (1982), The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski (1983), and Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss (1988) (also based on Shepherd’s writings) aired on TV before this and the movie release It Runs in the Family in 1994 featured the Parkers so “borrowing” from A Christmas Story wasn’t entirely unheard of. That being said, however, A Christmas Story 2 is a pretty miserable movie.
Oh, Flick…you never learn (at least it was just his lips)
The first film has a lot of charm. You have a kid who loves Christmas and desperately wants the Christmas gift of his dreams. I realize that Christmas means tradition (aka repetition), but this film tried to reuse multiple jokes from the original movie. Plus, a teenager who loves Christmas just doesn’t have the emotional impact as Christmas through a child’s eyes which made A Christmas Story so great. The story drags, and the movie isn’t even an hour and a half.
The cast is awful. Braeden Lemasters who takes the lead of Ralph does physically look like he could have possibly been Peter Billingsley when he was a teen, but the casting company picked an awful actor. The delivery and style of Lemasters is painful, and it is like he’s channeling Rick Moranis at points. Daniel Stern seems a bit lost in the movie as well. He can’t decide if he’s going to try to imitate Darren McGavin or create his own character. Instead, you get a guy who seems to be sending off one-liners. Stacey Travis plays the rather depressed and trapped mother way too peppy though I commend her for at least trying to do something different with the character. The actor playing Randy takes a back seat in this picture, and Ralph’s friends Schwartz and Flick play a bigger role…but like Lemasters, David Buehrle and David W. Thompson struggle as well. I did think Tiera Skovbye (the girl cast as Ralph’s love) had potential but didn’t have a very big role.
Ralphie’s gonna get some!
Visually, the movie also fails. The house of A Christmas Story is so memorable, that they have recreated the interiors in Cleveland as a working home and museum. With an iconic home, you’d think they could have remade it for the film. The house doesn’t match-up right and the great looking “historical” aspects of A Christmas Story looks too modern here.
A Christmas Story 2 shouldn’t have ever made it to filming. The story is boring, the acting is awful, and the film looks bad. With so many great holiday movies, don’t bother visiting this one. You’d be much better off watching the 24 Hours of A Christmas Story on TV than seeing its “sequel”.
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