Every great or even good actor has a moment in a movie that he or she never lives down. Terrence Howard is a fine actor, but there is one moment in
The Perfect Holiday that I bet will haunt him for a very long time. In the movie, he plays Bah Humbug, a kind of anti-Christmas angel whose job is to make people miserable. This is my best guess, as the movie is never quite clear as to who he is supposed to be, or what he has to do with anything in the movie. Anyway, he assumes different forms to torment the characters throughout the movie, and at one point, he assumes the form of a child. This is where the moment comes, where Howard is forced to look at the camera and say in a childish voice, "I gotta go dookie". If Terrence Howard ever earns some kind of Life Time Achievement award late in his career, something tells me the clips they play commemorating his career will not include that scene.
But that's just the kind of movie
The Perfect Holiday is. A pea-brained holiday comedy that will only appeal to the easily amused or those who don't care what happens in a movie, just as long as there's nothing offensive and it has a happy ending. When I say nothing offensive, I mean there's nothing objectionable in the material itself. The movie is likely to be offensive to anyone with an average adult intelligence. How stupid is this movie? It's a conventional Idiot Plot romantic comedy that's narrated by a pair of angels who are there for no reason whatsoever. To combat Howard's grouchy Bah Humbug character, there's a good Christmas spirit played by Queen Latifah named Mrs. Christmas. The fact that the movie would be no different with or without them all but proves just how unnecessary both of these characters are. They barely interact with the characters, have nothing to do with the story, and seem to only exist because Queen Latifah is listed as one of the Executive Producers of this mess. This is one time she would have been better off behind the camera, or perhaps she should have just avoided this thing all together.
The plot (such as it is) centers on a single mother named Nancy (Gabrielle Union). Nancy used to be married to a multi-millionaire rapper named J-Jizzy (Charlie Murphy, brother of Eddie), but they're divorced now, and she's stuck raising their three kids by herself. All Nancy wants is to meet a nice guy who would complement her. Her youngest daughter, Emily (Khail Bryant) hears her mother's wish, and decides to ask the local Mall Santa to send a guy for her mother. Santa turns out to be Benjamin (Morris Chestnut), a struggling song writer who immediately is attracted to Nancy. He uses the information he learns from little Emily to impress Nancy when he "accidentally" runs into her at a dry cleaner. The thing is, Nancy wants a normal guy, no one fancy. For some reason, Benjamin thinks Nancy wouldn't like him if she discovered he was a song writer and a Mall Santa. Why, you ask? Why indeed. The movie never quite elaborates on Benjamin's fears, but he lies to her anyway, and tells her that he sells office supplies. They fall hard for each other, even though they barely share any dialogue throughout the course of the movie, and most of the time they spend together is covered in music montages.
There are complications, of course. Nancy's oldest son, John-John (Malik Hammond) is still faithful to his birth father, and doesn't like the idea of his mom dating again. The poor kid seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that his father is an egotistical lout that doesn't care about him, and that Benjamin is a much better guy all around. He tries to halt Benjamin's advances on his mother with a series of pranks and traps, but that doesn't stop the guy from trying to bond with the kid. Another complication shows up when Nancy's ex-husband gets his hands on Benjamin's demo CD, and wants to put his song on an upcoming Christmas album. (Never mind the fact that this movie seems to be set well into the holiday season, and if this J-Jizzy guy doesn't have his Christmas CD out yet, he's not going to get many big sales off of it.) Benjamin finds himself forced to lie more to Nancy, not wanting her to discover that he's been hired by her ex. All this, and I haven't even mentioned Benjamin's best friend (Faizon Love from
Who's Your Caddy?) posing as a bounty hunter in order to impress his girlfriend, Nancy being ensnared in a custody battle for her kids, and a ludicrous climax where Benjamin must rescue one of Nancy's kids after he gets stuck on top of a giant Christmas tree when his toy race car sends him flying. In a movie this stuffed with plot, why did we need the Christmas Angels?
The Perfect Holiday is one of the most poorly constructed movies I've seen this year. It's as if co-writer and director Lance Rivera (
The Cookout) and the three others credited to the screenplay just threw whatever ideas they could think of, and hoped no one would notice there's no rhyme or reason to it all. The movie tries to combine elements of romantic comedy, childish slapstick, music media satire, and the supernatural all into one hideous package. And just to pad things out even more, there are numerous music montages thrown throughout that serve no purpose. Nothing in this movie makes any sense. Not the plot, not the motivations of the characters, not even some of the jokes. Take this scene for an example. Benjamin is having a meeting with J-Jizzy, so he can't make it for the Mall Santa job. He calls his best friend to stand in for him, since the friend usually plays the role of Santa's elf at the mall. Now Benjamin's friend is a very large and fat man, so what does he do? He tries to put on Benjamin's fat suit that he wears when he's playing Santa. Why does he do this? Just for the simple reason that we can laugh at a fat guy struggling to put on a padded suit that will make him even fatter. But it's not funny, because the joke doesn't make any sense in the first place. It's simply a cry of desperation on the part of the filmmakers, and an opportunity for the actor to humiliate himself.
The plot that we are supposed to care about (Benjamin and Nancy's relationship, and Benjamin trying to get closer to her kids) is equally mishandled due to the fact that none of these characters have been written with a scrap of integrity or intelligence. Benjamin has no personality other than he's a nice guy who makes very stupid decisions. Nancy doesn't even seem to have a job, despite the fact it looks like she lives in a home most single mothers (or people in general) would kill for. And her kids are smart-alecky sitcom clones that always have a snappy response for everything. At one point, Nancy sees that her ex-husband is trying to put her kids into some ugly matching clothes, and comments that the outfits make the children look like The Jackson Five. One of the kids immediately fires back that he's not going to be Michael. Who talks like this? The kids are treated like trained seals. They exist simply to look cute, and perform on command with some kind of one-liner comeback, or smart response that no child would ever say. Did the writers actually laugh as they wrote this dialogue, or did they simply sigh, close their eyes, and think of the paycheck that was to come? I'd like to think it was the second scenario, but I have my suspicions that they actually thought they were making something worth while here.
A couple weeks ago, I reviewed another holiday comedy called
This Christmas. It was a pleasant enough movie, but nothing special. And yet, compared to
The Perfect Holiday, it looks like
Citizen Kane. This is a movie that's been made without an ounce of care or thought. It's only goal is to bilk ignorant people looking for holiday-themed entertainment out of their money. Just like the spirit characters portrayed by Latifah and Howard, it has no reason to even be here in the first place. A brief run at your local theater before it winds up forgotten would be the most wonderful Christmas gift of all.
0 comments
Every great or even good actor has a moment in a movie that he or she never lives down. Terrence Howard is a fine actor, but there is one moment in The Perfect Holiday that I bet will haunt him for a very long time. In the movie, he plays Bah Humbug, a kind of anti-Christmas angel whose job is to make people miserable. This is my best guess, as the movie is never quite clear as to who he is supposed to be, or what he has to do with anything in the movie. Anyway, he assumes different forms to torment the characters throughout the movie, and at one point, he assumes the form of a child. This is where the moment comes, where Howard is forced to look at the camera and say in a childish voice, "I gotta go dookie". If Terrence Howard ever earns some kind of Life Time Achievement award late in his career, something tells me the clips they play commemorating his career will not include that scene.
But that's just the kind of movie The Perfect Holiday is. A pea-brained holiday comedy that will only appeal to the easily amused or those who don't care what happens in a movie, just as long as there's nothing offensive and it has a happy ending. When I say nothing offensive, I mean there's nothing objectionable in the material itself. The movie is likely to be offensive to anyone with an average adult intelligence. How stupid is this movie? It's a conventional Idiot Plot romantic comedy that's narrated by a pair of angels who are there for no reason whatsoever. To combat Howard's grouchy Bah Humbug character, there's a good Christmas spirit played by Queen Latifah named Mrs. Christmas. The fact that the movie would be no different with or without them all but proves just how unnecessary both of these characters are. They barely interact with the characters, have nothing to do with the story, and seem to only exist because Queen Latifah is listed as one of the Executive Producers of this mess. This is one time she would have been better off behind the camera, or perhaps she should have just avoided this thing all together.
The plot (such as it is) centers on a single mother named Nancy (Gabrielle Union). Nancy used to be married to a multi-millionaire rapper named J-Jizzy (Charlie Murphy, brother of Eddie), but they're divorced now, and she's stuck raising their three kids by herself. All Nancy wants is to meet a nice guy who would complement her. Her youngest daughter, Emily (Khail Bryant) hears her mother's wish, and decides to ask the local Mall Santa to send a guy for her mother. Santa turns out to be Benjamin (Morris Chestnut), a struggling song writer who immediately is attracted to Nancy. He uses the information he learns from little Emily to impress Nancy when he "accidentally" runs into her at a dry cleaner. The thing is, Nancy wants a normal guy, no one fancy. For some reason, Benjamin thinks Nancy wouldn't like him if she discovered he was a song writer and a Mall Santa. Why, you ask? Why indeed. The movie never quite elaborates on Benjamin's fears, but he lies to her anyway, and tells her that he sells office supplies. They fall hard for each other, even though they barely share any dialogue throughout the course of the movie, and most of the time they spend together is covered in music montages.
There are complications, of course. Nancy's oldest son, John-John (Malik Hammond) is still faithful to his birth father, and doesn't like the idea of his mom dating again. The poor kid seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that his father is an egotistical lout that doesn't care about him, and that Benjamin is a much better guy all around. He tries to halt Benjamin's advances on his mother with a series of pranks and traps, but that doesn't stop the guy from trying to bond with the kid. Another complication shows up when Nancy's ex-husband gets his hands on Benjamin's demo CD, and wants to put his song on an upcoming Christmas album. (Never mind the fact that this movie seems to be set well into the holiday season, and if this J-Jizzy guy doesn't have his Christmas CD out yet, he's not going to get many big sales off of it.) Benjamin finds himself forced to lie more to Nancy, not wanting her to discover that he's been hired by her ex. All this, and I haven't even mentioned Benjamin's best friend (Faizon Love from Who's Your Caddy?) posing as a bounty hunter in order to impress his girlfriend, Nancy being ensnared in a custody battle for her kids, and a ludicrous climax where Benjamin must rescue one of Nancy's kids after he gets stuck on top of a giant Christmas tree when his toy race car sends him flying. In a movie this stuffed with plot, why did we need the Christmas Angels?
The Perfect Holiday is one of the most poorly constructed movies I've seen this year. It's as if co-writer and director Lance Rivera (The Cookout) and the three others credited to the screenplay just threw whatever ideas they could think of, and hoped no one would notice there's no rhyme or reason to it all. The movie tries to combine elements of romantic comedy, childish slapstick, music media satire, and the supernatural all into one hideous package. And just to pad things out even more, there are numerous music montages thrown throughout that serve no purpose. Nothing in this movie makes any sense. Not the plot, not the motivations of the characters, not even some of the jokes. Take this scene for an example. Benjamin is having a meeting with J-Jizzy, so he can't make it for the Mall Santa job. He calls his best friend to stand in for him, since the friend usually plays the role of Santa's elf at the mall. Now Benjamin's friend is a very large and fat man, so what does he do? He tries to put on Benjamin's fat suit that he wears when he's playing Santa. Why does he do this? Just for the simple reason that we can laugh at a fat guy struggling to put on a padded suit that will make him even fatter. But it's not funny, because the joke doesn't make any sense in the first place. It's simply a cry of desperation on the part of the filmmakers, and an opportunity for the actor to humiliate himself.
The plot that we are supposed to care about (Benjamin and Nancy's relationship, and Benjamin trying to get closer to her kids) is equally mishandled due to the fact that none of these characters have been written with a scrap of integrity or intelligence. Benjamin has no personality other than he's a nice guy who makes very stupid decisions. Nancy doesn't even seem to have a job, despite the fact it looks like she lives in a home most single mothers (or people in general) would kill for. And her kids are smart-alecky sitcom clones that always have a snappy response for everything. At one point, Nancy sees that her ex-husband is trying to put her kids into some ugly matching clothes, and comments that the outfits make the children look like The Jackson Five. One of the kids immediately fires back that he's not going to be Michael. Who talks like this? The kids are treated like trained seals. They exist simply to look cute, and perform on command with some kind of one-liner comeback, or smart response that no child would ever say. Did the writers actually laugh as they wrote this dialogue, or did they simply sigh, close their eyes, and think of the paycheck that was to come? I'd like to think it was the second scenario, but I have my suspicions that they actually thought they were making something worth while here.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home