Jingle All the Way

Put that cookie down! Right now!

"Two Dads, One Toy, No Prisoners."

Hello all and Merry Christmas from The Tagline! What better way to ring in this magical day, than with a movie where Arnold cold-cocks a reindeer in someone's living room. I'm referring of course, to the ridiculous Christmas movie Jingle All the Way, starring the Governator himself as Howard Langston, an absentee father (which is apparently the preferred protagonist for these movies) who has forgotten to buy his son Jamie (the nauseating Jake Lloyd) a Turbo Man action figure, the hot toy for the Christmas season, and the television super hero that Jamie looks to as a male role model in the vacuum left by his actual father, who is too busy selling... I'm not sure what I don't think you find out really. Realizing that he has forgotten to get this really shitty looking action figure for his son on Christmas Eve, Howard sets out to try and find one last minute, while his sleazy neighbor Ted (Phil Hartman God rest his soul) puts the moves on his wife Liz (Rita Wilson). Along the way, he encounters a postal worker also trying to get a Turbo Man figure at any cost, named Myron (Sinbad, yeah that's right), and the two become embroiled in a bitter race to obtain a Turbo Man.

Two men enter one man leaves.

Now I don't want you to misunderstand. This movie... it isn't good. Actually it's quite bad. For starters, it's a formulaic holiday movie, that proceeds in a predictable way, and ends in a set of scenes that are truly ridiculous. One feels the need to ask questions about the final act of this film, taking place during a Christmas parade. For instance, what fucking parade has a dude with a rocket pack, shooting discs out his arms, and a magical boomerang? Answer: No parade ever. We will ignore that Arnold crashes at full speed into a brick building. Wait did Sinbad shoot his hand off, and then move the hand? That's... kind of weird. Considering that the movie is mostly within the realm of physical possibility up until this sequence, it seems very odd.

Darth Vader reporting for duty derp.

Also there is the Jake Lloyd problem. which is to say, Jake Lloyd appears in the movie at all. For those who don't remember/know his name, Jake Lloyd portrait most notably the young Anakin Skywalker in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. If you remember him from that, you remember that he is just the worst little child actor ever. He's plain awful. Incidentally, he did not go on to be an actor at all. Phantom Menace marked basically the end of his career. Fortunately for us. If I need some to watch some nerd act like a total chode, I can just watch Taylor Lautner in Abduction. Or anything else he does. Jake Lloyd's lack of talents are on full display in this film.

I AM DE TEURBO MAHN.

There are however entertaining things on display, in an unwitting sort of way. Sinbad is a raving lunatic: Funny. Arnold Schwarzenegger doing almost anything: Funny. Those two in direct opposition to each other: Hilarious, regardless of intent. That's what I get out of this movie, a kind of twisted amusement at the sheer cheesiness of it. Don't look for something good, just enjoy something bad.

As an aside, yes, this movie was completely panned by the critics. It did manage to gross a hefty 120 million against its 60 mil budget, but that didn't endear it to any critics, and really why should they have liked it. I mean, this movie is pretty bad, no doubt there.