I so wanted this film to work. A Christmas Story is a real classic. It combines a tone and sense of humor that I think is pretty unique and has really become one of my favorite films. I was disappointed to see that the original cast had changed for this sequel but I still figured it might work. Culkin is a good actor and it seemed plausible that it could all work again. But the thing is - the movie almost suffers from trying to hard to be like the original even though it isn't anything like the original. This has a strange effect and leaves the viewer wondering what kind of movie this is. Others have also commented that Charles Grodin is positively terrible in the film - and that's sad both because he was actually a pretty charming guy in other movies and because the original Dad was so good.
Review of It Runs in the Family
