Saving Christmas (2014)

Fantastic!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

When I reviewed The Last Airbender last year, I figured it would be the worst movie I would bother writing about on here. This one is something special. I have given very few films a 1/10 rating, as in order to do so, I must feel that it's devoid of all artistic and entertainment value. Because Saving Christmas fits the bill, I've given it that rarest of honors.When Kirk (Kirk Cameron) sees that his friend Christian (Darren Doane) isn't enjoying Christmas, he sits down with him to explain away his concerns about the holiday.I once saw a movie called Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny that was worse than Saving Christmas. I guess that's about the best I can say about it.The movie feels like a short film drawn out to an hour and twenty minutes. The main "narrative" involves 38 minutes of two men sitting in a car interrupted by slow motion flashbacks and fifteen minutes afterward dedicated to a dance sequence and credits/bloopers. That leaves the remaining half hour or so for slow motion footage, plodding narrations, and an obsession with hot chocolate. This is a movie that is terribly difficult to sit through.While it's clear that the film's technical integrity was at best a quickly abandoned afterthought in favor of its thematic material, the fact that it fails there as well is damning evidence of how poor this movie is. Saving Christmas isn't even about putting Christ back in Christmas, as the poster claims, but is instead about Cameron making up some spots to stick Him in. Much of the movie consists of Cameron explaining to his friend how different traditions had Christian meanings all along, such as Christmas trees representing Christ's cross, presents representing city skylines, and snow globes representing nativity scenes. The cast is likely a group of people that Cameron knows, and let's just say the few non-white people present really stand out. The only black character with a speaking role, Diondre (played by a man named David), is a jive-talkin', hip-hop-lovin' DJ who fits just about every stereotype you would expect of a man in this kind of movie.The worst part of this film, both onscreen and off, is Kirk Cameron himself. From this movie and the events surrounding its release, he strikes me as arrogant and self-aggrandizing. Every smug, nonsensical explanation that he offers to his friend is met with immediate awe and reverence. In reality, what he says throughout the film is at best naive and at worst falsehoods, distortions, and misrepresentations of both Christian and pagan histories. The fact that Cameron wrote these interactions framing himself as flawlessly as he did says something about the man's character.He goes as far as to praise Christmas-season materialism by declaring it to be a way to thank God for taking on a material body. That comparison is inherently trivial, as beyond the equivocation of the word "material", Cameron is describing every holiday and how it is celebrated. That is, of course, unless there is some ethereal holiday that cannot be celebrated by any physical means. What am I even talking about at this point?Saving Christmas is among the worst movies I've ever seen. It is an abject failure in all matters spiritual, historical, visual, audible, and ethical. At the core of this travesty is a pretentious, one-man charge toward desperate re-appropriation of Christmas traditions by a man who sees himself as our cultural savior. The acting is bad, the writing is bad, the message is bad, the music is bad, the dancing is bad, the jokes is bad, and the hot chocolate is probably bad. Do not watch this movie.

It's not like I didn't know what to expect with this movie - I mean, it's a Kirk Cameron joint, the sanctimony and glaring strawmen are to be expected. But the dissonance between that action-movie poster and the actual product is what leaves a bad taste. C'mon, the guy's coming at you with candy canes of fury, ready to win the War on Christmas by attrition. The marketing on this bad boy is nuts!The movie on the other hand is pure garbage. Cameron spends the entire running time lecturing us on the true origins of Christmas, reassuring his audience that they have morality on their side. That's his bailiwick, but the whole movie's just a conversation in a car. That's it. The sermon's interminable.Look, I know this was never intended for me, but the overall cheapness is unforgivable. To say that it's disappointing is an understatement, but Christmas is the last thing being saved here. And now that poster isn't nearly as fun.2/10

There used to be a cinema that featured really bad movies. It cost nothing to get in, but the viewer had to pay if they wanted to leave before the film ended. If that place still exists, they should add this one to their list.There are brilliantly bad movies that deserve a "1" rating. This is one of them.

Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas officially joins Santa Claus (1959), Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, and Santa Conquers the Martians as the worst Christmas films ever made. At least those films had a few moments that were so-bad-they're good. This is an insult to intelligence! It currently stands at number 2 on this site's Bottom 100. I would place it top 10...there's just a few other films I've seen that I found worse.Let me start out by saying that I am a practising Catholic. I don't claim to be an expert on religion or the Bible as humility on the subject needs to be kept. Kirk Cameron could really use some of that too. Let me also say that there have been a few interviews where I agree with what Cameron debates. But this film made me lose all respect for him.Saving Christmas looks like a mockbuster. A "mockbuster" is a low-budget (sometimes micro- budget) rip-off of a huge film being released at the same time that is meant to capitalize on the bigger film's success. They look like they have a budget of $4. This movie literally looks like a micro-budget film. It stars Kirk Cameron playing himself who's hosting a Christmas party. The scenes that show the party are agonizing. The acting is unbelievably bad! His brother Christian is sick of the materialistic nature that Christmas has become and wants to put "Christ" back in "Christmas." He hides out in his car to do some thinking where idiotic Kirk comes to talk to him about his insecurities. This is the plot and it doesn't sound that bad eh? Only Kirk Cameron and company could take a subject worthy of discussion and spin it out of control. So what's so bad about the story? Sure the acting is horrid and the budget is low, but that's not the worst. The majority of the movie takes place in Christian's car with Cameron doing voice-overs in dramatizations of what he's taking about. Those dramatizations are very bad and unnecessary. It could have been a "My Dinner With Andre" style and kept the camera on them the whole time, but nooooooo. The technological issues are bad enough, and these little scenes just add fuel to the fire! And what Kirk talks about are all wrong and make no sense. The first thing that Christian complains about is the materialistic possession in Christmas and Kirk says all that stuff is great. Right away that's wrong. And he just goes on to randomly and falsely talk about Jesus' birth without even saying how that ties in with Christian's issue. Next is his shpeel about Christmas trees. Again, wrong explanation! And Kirk saying why Christmas is celebrated on December 25 is wrong too! Studies show that He was born around August. And that goes on and on with what feels like forever. Kirk Cameron's buddy in Christian director and pastor Alex Kendrick who I think is great. He could not save this mess. Any self-respecting Christian or anybody with half a brain can see that this is not a good film. It practically makes a mockery of the Messiah! Cameron caused a backlash with what he said was done by "atheists." It's not just atheists, it is also Christians that know better than you, Kirk!Instead of making a movie about Christ in Christmas, get somebody who knows their stuff to do a documentary on the subject.