I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (Walt Disney, PG)
Sometime soon,
nine-year-old girls with a jones for Home Improvement's Jonathan Taylor Thomas
will be able to enjoy this sugary message of family reconciliation and idealized
seasonal goodwill on video. Until that time, why rush to see a dowdy, mechanical
lesson-of-Christmas movie in which Thomas--hair seriously frosted and looking
alarmingly like his former TV dad, Tim Allen--plays Jake, a smarmy college kid
in California who agrees to return home to New York for the holiday only because
his father has bribed him with a fancy car? 7th Heaven's Jessica Biel costars as
Jake's more mature girlfriend, who nevertheless is patient while her guy works
out aspects of jerkhood as he makes his way cross-country in a Santa suit, the
legacy of a punishment laid on him by classmates fed up with his
high-handedness. (He's sad and angry inside, see: His father remarried just 10
months after his mother's death.) At its worst, this family comedy finds
unearned laughs in old women and dog flatulence. At its best, there's a nice
moment where every girl in the dorm wears a pore-cleansing strip on her
nose--the true expression of the holiday season.
D+
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