"On the 2nd Day of Christmas" is absolute torture. It is the cinematic equivalent of coal in your stocking. Here is a movie so unpleasant and manipulative that you will have to take a cold shower just to remove the swarminess.
I have never disliked a Christmas movie so much. It tries to shamelessly manipulate our feelings. This is the kind of movie that Roger Ebert would describe as "taking tears by liposuction". That's how desperate these filmmakers are to move us. Well, it moved me. Off the couch at the halfway point. I usually sit through an entire movie, no matter how bad. But an hour and 10 minutes of this tripe was more than I could bear.
With a more organized and thoughtful screenplay, this could have been a good movie. But this script has several fatal flaws. First, there are no sympathetic or likable characters. When by the twenty minute mark, you want to throw your female lead out the window, you know you're in trouble. Second, the film is overly predictable. We know what's going to happen and sure enough, I successfully predicted everything that happened after the opening ten minutes. Third, the performances feel by the numbers. There's no life or flavor, just routine unpleasantness.
Do yourself a favor. Instead of wasting two hours of your life, read a book, do a jigsaw puzzle, go out for a walk. Just don't watch this movie.
zero stars (out of four)
I have never disliked a Christmas movie so much. It tries to shamelessly manipulate our feelings. This is the kind of movie that Roger Ebert would describe as "taking tears by liposuction". That's how desperate these filmmakers are to move us. Well, it moved me. Off the couch at the halfway point. I usually sit through an entire movie, no matter how bad. But an hour and 10 minutes of this tripe was more than I could bear.
With a more organized and thoughtful screenplay, this could have been a good movie. But this script has several fatal flaws. First, there are no sympathetic or likable characters. When by the twenty minute mark, you want to throw your female lead out the window, you know you're in trouble. Second, the film is overly predictable. We know what's going to happen and sure enough, I successfully predicted everything that happened after the opening ten minutes. Third, the performances feel by the numbers. There's no life or flavor, just routine unpleasantness.
Do yourself a favor. Instead of wasting two hours of your life, read a book, do a jigsaw puzzle, go out for a walk. Just don't watch this movie.
zero stars (out of four)