What if Will Farrell interferes in Ryan Reynolds’ life?

Anders’ movie is a modern take on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but with a beautiful twist. What if the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future would transform someone into a much better person every Christmas and not only once? The world would be so much better! For this Christmas, the Ghosts and their team found the perfect man: A hotel boss who treats his staff in the rudest way possible. However, before they start interfering in his life, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) runs into a hotel guest, Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds). The businessman uses social media and his ability to swoon everyone over with his fancy words to profit from weaponizing the war on Christmas. This goes against everything the Ghosts stand for, and because of that, Briggs becomes their target.

Present discovers that Briggs has no sense of morality when infiltrating his life. Briggs doesn’t see how worn out his loyal assistant Kimberly (Octavia Spencer) is, and when his young niece Wren (Marlow Barkley) wants to become an important person at her school, he convinces her to play it dirty instead of fair. However, it turns out that this mission might not be an easy one at all for Present. Briggs is stubborn as hell, and Present falls for Kimberly and has to face his dark past. Will Briggs be the unredeemable who’s redeemable after all, and how will Present face his demons?

Go on a joyful, Christmassy and never-ending trip

What makes Spirited extremely enjoyable is the chemistry and performances of the leads. After appearing in Elf and Eurovision, a film that combines the Christmas spirit and musical numbers is right up Ferrell’s street. He leads this movie with such humour, sassiness and emotional touches so that you can connect instantly with the characters. Hollywood-favourite Reynolds (Free Guy, Deadpool 2) is again on-point as a cruel and macho businessman who lets no one or nothing stands in his way. He brings bags of humour, witty moments and even an uplifting vibe to this movie.

For us is Spencer (Snowpiercer, Ma) an actress who shines in every role she takes due to her impeccable talent and delicate performances. This time is no different. She took singing classes for this movie, and it paid off beautifully. Her lovely singing voice is a beautiful addition to her multi-layered performance, and she heightens that touching feeling of this movie immensely. Some cameos throughout this movie will put a smile on your face.

When watching Spirited, it’s clear that cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau (Thor: The Dark World, Creed II) understood the assignment perfectly. The combination of red-green is seen in every scene in one way or another; the tailing shots bring the songs and dance routines perfectly to life, and the wide shots add another beautiful layer to this movie. With music from The Greatest Showman and La La Land duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, it’s not surprising that the songs and dances are full of glitz and glamour.

Sadly, Spirited is not all fun-fun, joy-joy. Due to using the same songs, sung each time differently, the film becomes too repetitive to stay interesting for the 2h7min runtime. Another reason why we can’t give this movie the full five stars is the cheap-looking production design. Sometimes it feels like the musical numbers are sung in front of a green screen or on a cheap set. The songs would have had a much better impact if the director would have used actual physical spaces.

Not a classic Christmas film but a pretty damn good movie!

Whether you like this movie mostly depends on how much cheesiness you can take from a film. As long as you want to be carried away by sweet and predictable plots, uplifting songs, over-the-top choreography and outstanding acting performances, this is certainly a movie you will enjoy! While Spirited won’t become a classic Christmas film, it’s a pretty damn good movie!

Rating: (4 / 5)

Spirited is out now in UK cinemas and on Apple TV+.

Also Read: Who Did It Better: Miracle on 34th Street

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Spoiler Warning – massive spoilers ahead for The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, Parasite, all of Star Wars & Home Alone.

Comedy – The Addams Family – The Addams Family

The Addams Family was originally a comic and then a TV show but I’m focusing on the two films made in the 90s. This is a family that loves each other. As opposed to many portrayals of married couples Gomez and Morticia are madly in love, endlessly romantic, and very public in their feelings. Their children are incredibly important to them – in Addams Family Values they send their children to a bright, cheery summer camp despite their hatred of such a place as they think the children want to go. Gomez’s relationship with his brother Fester is of huge significance; their falling out a constant wound and their reconciliation wonderful. Grandmama lives in the family home, the hirsute Cousin It is in regular attendance and their butler Lurch is seen as family, as is Thing, whose relationship I’ve never understood.

Drama – The Kim Family – Parasite

The Kim family are struggling to make ends meet in South Korea, each family member has various marketable skills but seemingly demand for jobs is overwhelming. The son, Ki-Woo gets a job as a tutor for the rich Park family under false pretences and then slowly brings in each of his family members to various jobs in the household. The family goes so far as to plot against existing employees to get them fired – making it seem the housekeeper has an infectious disease for example. Neither family come off terribly well – the Park family are entitled and patronising, the Kims have lied their way into someone’s house and had other people fired, the story is told from the point of view of the Kims so we have more sympathy for them but told from the Park perspective they would be monsters.

Sci-Fi – The Skywalkers – Star Wars Saga

The Skywalkers are a family of drama like no other. A quick rundown of their various tragedies

• Schmi Skywalker – a slave on Tatooine who has a quasi-mystical pregnancy leading to the birth of Anakin Skywalker. Schmi is later captured and killed by Tusken Raiders.
• Anakin Skywalker – Born a slave and leaves Tatooine to become a Jedi. Becomes involved in the Clone Wars eventually destroying the Republic and killing many, many Jedi (even the younglings). After spectacularly losing a duel with his former best-friend he becomes Darth Vader. Anakin’s lover Padme dies in childbirth although this is put down to a broken heart because of Anakin but the twins – Luke and Leia – survive. Darth Vader spends a lot of time trying to kill or kidnap his son Luke, only to die after getting in a duel with Luke.
• Luke Skywalker – raised on Tatooine by relatives until they are brutally murdered by the Empire. Luke trains to be a Jedi eventually confronting Darth Vader only to lose his hand and find out Vader is his father. Their second confrontation leads to Vader’s death, though not at Luke’s hand.
• Leia Organa – raised on Alderaan by Bail Organa Leia is unaware of her Skywalker heritage until Luke tells her, realising not only her biological father destroyed her planet and tortured her, she had kissed her brother. Leia marries Han Solo and has a son Ben…and neither of those relationships go very smoothly. Leia dies in a successful attempt to influence her son in turning away from evil.
• Ben Solo – trained to be a Jedi by his uncle Luke until that uncle contemplated killing Ben because of the darkness he sensed in his nephew. Ben escapes and not surprisingly goes full evil, becoming Kylo Ren, following in his grandfather’s footsteps. Ren kills his father, tries to kill his mother, and also tries to kill his uncle. After some measure of redemption he dies.
• Luke Skywalker continued – after going into self-imposed exile for years Luke agrees to train Rey to be a Jedi but Rey leaves before completing her training. Later as Kylo Ren is about to destroy the Resistance Luke sacrifices himself to slow Ren down.
• Rey Skywalker – with all of the Skywalkers dead, Rey, student of both Luke and Leia Skywalker takes up the Skywalker name.

So four generations of the Skywalkers full of familicide, galaxy-wide political turmoil and occasionally blowing up planets. That is a lot of tragedy and in my opinion, Hamlet doesn’t even come close.

Horror – The McCallisters – Home Alone

I was looking for a horror film with an interesting family when it occurred to me that with only the slightest change in tone Home Alone is a horror film. The McCallisters are an exceptionally affluent family and have gathered to go on holiday to Paris. And apparently, accidentally go on holiday leaving young Kevin at home. They are a family of sociopaths, bullies and dangerously indifferent caregivers. Kevin is tormented by older siblings, his feelings ignored by cruel parents, and treated with outright hostility by extended family members. As for Kevin…he may have issues. First, he seems to think he made his family magically disappear and he is happy about this. Then when confronted with burglars he seems to relish the opportunity to torture them – bear in mind, he sets one of them on fire. Perhaps most galling of all, the McCallister children spend their time telling spooky stories about an elderly neighbour who they have the audacity to judge.

Also Read: Film Franchise Graveyard: Movies That Killed Off Their Own Franchise

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