A Dennis the Menace Christmas (2007)

Movie Info

I’ve got to say leaving stuff out like “a priceless stamp collection” seems kind of foolish if everyone knows Dennis is the Son of Satan

Dennis (Maxwell Perry Cotton) is excited about Christmas.  He wants a new bike so he can beat the school bully in a bike race and he hopes he’s been good enough to get it.  When Dennis gets Mr. Wilson (Robert Wagner) in the gift exchange, Dennis decides to make Mr. Wilson’s bah-humbug go away.  Mr. Wilson and his wife Mrs. Wilson (Louise Fletcher) aren’t necessarily ready for the type of help that Dennis brings.  Mr. Wilson finds he needs help from a visiting angel named Bob (Godfrey).

Directed by Ron Oliver, A Dennis the Menace Christmas was a straight-to-DVD follow-up to Dennis the Menace (1993) and Dennis the Menace Strikes Again! (1998).  It received moderate reviews upon its release.

An angel…ok…should have brought that up much earlier

A Dennis the Menace Christmas combines a ton of Christmas movies and due to this, comes out as a bit of a mess.  The movie borrows from The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life, and of course A Christmas Carol for the last segment of the film in which Mr. Wilson is shown, by an angel on a mission, what he’s done by telling Dennis there is no Santa Claus (which in itself might awaken some kids watching since they are often on the verge or realizing the truth).  It is a real hodgepodge of movies and even uses a shot from Gremlins’ Kingston Falls as an establishing shot of the town in which they live.

With the combination of movies, it is also strange that the movie decides to wait until almost the end to really develop this whole angel thing.  The angel appears early in the film, but then seems to be forgotten for most of the movie.  If the angel is such an important role in the story, he should be more prevalent throughout the film and not crammed in at the end.

Will Dennis and I be trapped forever in this hell known as Christmas?

Robert Wagner is a real weird choice for Mr. Wilson.  Though technically Wagner is Mr. Wilson’s age, I always pictured Mr. Wilson a bigger older guy…Wagner seems to just be picking up a check, and Louise Fletcher brings her flat acting which worked in One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest to Mrs. Wilson…again flat.  Maxwell Perry Cotton is fine as Dennis (it is a kids movie), and Kim Schraner and George Newbern are good as his exasperated parents Unfortunately, Dennis the Menace is also about Dennis’ friends and Joey (Jake Beale) and Margaret (China Anne McClain) don’t have much of a role in the film.

A Dennis the Menace Christmas is very standard fair comedy/Christmas stuff.  There are some inspiring moments (like The Omen–like music and shot when Dennis comes to see Mr. Wilson), but these are few and far between.  If you are looking for Christmas movies, you can do better than this.