If anything this is an overrated anti-Christmas film. It is not funny. It is depressing. It's whole reason for being seams to cater to people who are so frustrated with the pressure of the Holidays that they want to blow off steam by flipping around and mock the whole holiday scene. For that is what it does. It mocks every holiday tradition in sight. The characters are despicable and insensitive. The only things I could relate to is the washing out the mouth with soap as punishment for saying a swear word and the decoder ring because that happened to me. Otherwise the story is blatantly unbelievable. A nine year old kid who still believes in Santa Claus? A grandmother who still knits a full body bunny suit pajamas for a nine year old child but not for his younger brother? Those type of pajamas are for toddlers and infants. No sane person would make them for a kids even at the age of six. But yet we are led to believe that the grandmother is so senile that she still thinks Ralphie is still 6 years old when he is nine in the movie. How about the parents stepping in to tell the grandmother to stop making those pajamas because the kid is too old for them and she is embarrassing him. That would be the realistic thing to do. But do they in this film? No. They seam to enjoy embarrassing their own son by forcing him to wear them. Or how believable is it to have a nine year child still going to a department store Santa, sitting on his lap and ask for a BB. Gun? Not very. Worst yet, no department or mall would ever allow their Santa to put his foot in the face of a child to push him down a slide. They would have faced a ton of law suits. Another absolutely unbelievable part of the film was Darren McGavin as the father "The Old Man - Mr. Parker". He was way too old to be married to Melinda Dillon "Mrs. Parker" and still be called a young couple in the film. He looks like should be having Grandchildren or Great-grandchildren instead of his first round of offspring. Yes, I understand this story is presented through the distorted lens of a child viewing his parents as old. I just think that if you can spot the dye in McGavin's hair, the director carried the exaggeration to far and broke the willing suspension of disbelief. I never bought for a moment McGavin as being the father in that family. The mother is not that much better. A woman who has a husband who has swear words pouring out of his mouth freely as water flowing over the edge of Niagara falls but yet is shocked when one of her sons eventually starts using the same language he had picked up from his father. Come on! Even Though nonsense words are substituted for the real swear words, it is clear what was really meant that the father was saying and what Ralphie was saying. The F word and it is not "Fudge". The father doesn't think his foul mouth isn't partly the blame? Also the bit of the mother separating the two boys fighting but not stopping to see if one boy is alright when she sees that one boy has a bloody nose was a bit far-fetched. How many mothers you know act like that? Not many. Ralphie was just plainly stupid. He should have known better at his age not to swear in front of his parents. Here is another piece of stupidity by Ralphie. After being told how dangerous BB rifles were and was told not to place the target in front of a metal surface because BBs ricochet off of metal, what does he do? He places the target on a lattice in front of a metal fence where the BB goes through the target, through the lattice and hits the metal fence and ricochets back and hits Ralphie in the glasses on the first shot.
As for the story and the jokes, the story was predictable and the many of the jokes were ether not funny, or just plain flat. Every plot point was televised a mile ahead of time. I mean I knew from the from almost the start that Ralphie was going to get his BB. rifle and shoot his eye out in the end. I knew the tongue was going to stick to the flagpole. I knew that the mother was somehow going destroy the leg lamp. As far as the leg lamp gag went, that was not that funny in the first place and got old faster than a particle traveling at the speed of light. The story is so bereft of content that a group of animators made a 30 second parody of it that covers every important point in the story. If the story can be condensed into 30 seconds, it means that there is not that much content in it in the first place. That can be viewed at http://www.angryalien.com/aa/xmas_storybuns.asp .
Oh, what a lovely messages this film sends out. Like, for instamce, if you get in trouble blame, it is okey to it on a totally innocent kid in order to get yourself out of trouble. Or how about that mean Santa Claus so much wants to get rid of kids that he will put his foot in your face. Wow, I would just love my kids to see that. NOT!
As for the story and the jokes, the story was predictable and the many of the jokes were ether not funny, or just plain flat. Every plot point was televised a mile ahead of time. I mean I knew from the from almost the start that Ralphie was going to get his BB. rifle and shoot his eye out in the end. I knew the tongue was going to stick to the flagpole. I knew that the mother was somehow going destroy the leg lamp. As far as the leg lamp gag went, that was not that funny in the first place and got old faster than a particle traveling at the speed of light. The story is so bereft of content that a group of animators made a 30 second parody of it that covers every important point in the story. If the story can be condensed into 30 seconds, it means that there is not that much content in it in the first place. That can be viewed at http://www.angryalien.com/aa/xmas_storybuns.asp .
Oh, what a lovely messages this film sends out. Like, for instamce, if you get in trouble blame, it is okey to it on a totally innocent kid in order to get yourself out of trouble. Or how about that mean Santa Claus so much wants to get rid of kids that he will put his foot in your face. Wow, I would just love my kids to see that. NOT!