The Flight Before Christmas (Genius DVD) + The Perfect Holiday + This Christmas (Sony DVDs)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-/C/C     Features: C

 

 

In the race to produce the next Christmas classic, we have not been totally glutted because so many of the efforts old and new get lost in the next wave of sometimes ambitious product.  Sometimes you get something as silly as Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (reviewed elsewhere on this site), while other times, you get something outright forgettable and even condescending Right Wing propaganda in some odd cases.  Fortunately, there are those projects that have better intents and here are three of them.

 

The Flight Before Christmas (2008) is a Rudolph-like story about another reindeer named Niko that was made as a German/Norway computer animation co-production and has English voicing like that of up and coming Emma Roberts.  It is cute, child-safe and has CG that tries to imitate the stop-motion puppet animation of the Rankin-Bass cycle (reviewed elsewhere on this site) in a good way.  Nothing great, but something different, somewhat fresh and predictable as Santa is going to need more help to get those toys out there.

 

The Perfect Holiday (2007) is the first of two predominantly African-American cast films dealing with the holidays that is vying to become the main African-American Christmas film and with a cast that includes Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, Faizon Love, Terence Howard and Queen Latifah, has its moments, but misses the boat a bit.  It starts when Union’s daughter tells Santa she wants to meet a good man and look out!  Potentially cute starting idea gets sidetracked by too many subplots that never add up, but the cast is having some fun and that helps.

 

This Christmas (2007) is a little more serious and dramatic as the characters have to deal with unresolved issues of the past (read melodrama) in order to make the holiday work, but that is also uneven when all is said and done despite the efforts of another solid cast that includes Delroy Lindo, Loretta Divine, Chris Brown and Regina King.  Again, a likable cast and with fewer big names, they have some good moments in a different way, but like This Christmas, the acting and the starts sometimes exceed the material despite the best efforts of the directors.

 

 

Each is anamorphically enhanced and has a different aspect ratio (1.78 X 1 for Flight, 1.85 X 1 for Perfect, 2.35 X 1 for Christmas) and though they all look good, they also all have a certain softness in different ways in each case throughout.  Color is consistent enough, but never much more.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes across the films can have a few lively moments, but are dialoguer-based for the most part, give or take music.  Extras for Flight only include previews, for Perfect include two featurettes and audio commentary by the producers and for Christmas include a making of featurette, deleted/extended scenes, Music Video and cast audio commentary.

 

So in all cases, you get respectable product, but no classics, though maybe some will find some of these personal favorites.  The holidays can be that way.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo