How dare '48 Christmas Wishes' (2017) be so shit. How dare this film that is clearly for kids and was never meant to be watched by a 23 year old man be so terrible. How dare it. Jokes aside this film is pretty damn bad but it is clearly not for me. This film is for very small children and, as you may have guessed, I am not one of those. However, I don't want to sit here and use that as to much of an excuse. Just because a film is made for little kids doesn't mean that it has a pass when it comes to quality and this film massively fails in almost every aspect. From the script to the production to the acting it is all really bad. The film follows three elves, Mindy (Clara Kushnir), Cam (Ethan Yang) and Sammy (Maya Franzoi) who accidentally burn the Christmas wishes of an entire town. This forces Mindy and Cam to travel to the town to try and get the Christmas wishes from the kids themselves. They do this with the help of Blake (Liam McDonald), a young boy whose dad passed away around Christmas time and whose family are struggling through another festive period. Shenanigans inevitably ensue and hilarity occurs (I say as I stare daggers through this computer screen).
Okay, I know I just spent 200 odd words shitting on this film but I would like to point out one good aspect of it and that is a couple of the set designs. The set design of the mail room in the north pole is particularly pleasing on the eye. It has a whole steam punk aesthetic which works well for the scene and the action. It is also filled with Little details that the camera doesn't focus on. They're just tucked away in the back for the keen eyed watcher to notice, giving life and dimension to the world. I always appreciate little details like this as they just add much more to the world of the film. Unfortunately, my praise has abruptly come to an end. Lets go onto the script. It is laughable. The story is pretty much copy and paste fair from a thousand other films and so there is nothing to get excited about in the department. But the dialogue is wooden and feels forced a lot of the time, and there is not one joke that lands. Not one. It attempts slapstick humour, misunderstanding humour, pun humour, fish out of water humour, all with the same amount of success as a fish out of water (how ironic). But it tries bless it. The film also suffers from very bland direction and cinematography and a couple moments of really odd editing decisions. It is not egregiously bad. Far from it. But it is ridiculously dull and has no feeling behind it. It matches up perfectly with the script coming to think of it. The general production of the film is, at best, mediocre. But, there is one aspect of this film I am yet to mention that drags this film down into the mire, and that is the atrocious acting.
This is the part of the review where i am pretty much just going to go in on kids. I am not going to enjoy this, but in order for you to understand the true nature of how shit this film is I have to. The child actors in this film are awful, and there are so many of them. Every scene has at least one child actor in, and every single time you just can not buy into what they are doing because they are not good at all. Some are better than others. Clara Kushnir and Maya Franzoi, as Mindy and Sammy respectively, at least seem like they are trying to put in a good performance, as does Liam McDonald as Blake. They don't succeed in giving good performances, but at least you can see the effort. But Ethan Yang as Cam was ridiculously wooden. There was almost no emotion in the performance and even his movements seemed forced. What I will say is that they all looked like they were at least having fun making the film, and I can't go in on them to much for that. At the end of the day they are kids, mostly with little acting experience before. Whats the excuse for the adult actors? One in particularly just ground my gears. That performance came from Rais Muoi as George, the head elf. I hated this character so much. The performance is ridiculously over the top and hammy to an extreme that is so aggravating. and you might be thinking "Its a kids film" but I don't care. You can still put in a good performance regardless whether it is a kids film or not and this performance is rancid. The whole film feels like a pantomime and this guys performance epitomises that perfectly.
Yes, this film isn't for me. Yes, it is for young children. Yes, it is meant to be light-hearted and not take seriously. Yes, it is performed by a cast made up of mainly children. But does that mean that it deserves a free pass when it comes to criticism? Absolutely fucking not. This film is awful, quite possibly the worst of the four films I have seen so far and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the worst film I saw throughout the whole of this challenge. I do not recommend this film one bit. I wouldn't even recommend it to my 2 year old niece, and that is because there are so many better kids films out there including kids Christmas films. You don't need to stoop this low and show your kids crap when there is quality stuff out there. Make your kids happy this Christmas. Give them gift of never having to watch this shit.