A Christmas Story 2

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: A Christmas Story 2

Ah, A Christmas Story. The heartwarming story of a young boy trying to get that perfect Christmas present, and by extension that perfect Christmas. It was lightning in a bottle that my mother hated, and networks like TBS and Cartoon Network try to kill with 24 hour marathons.

So in 2012, they decided to try and kill it again with a sequel. Well, a second sequel. But it ignores “My Summer Story,” so we will too.

Ralphie is now 15, on the verge of manhood, but he still narrates like a 9 year old. Having the adult narrate young Ralphie’s thoughts in a dramatic tone really worked when he was 9 because as a kid, everything seems dramatic. However when you’re a teenager, there is still drama, but it comes across creepy when he describes Ralphie sniffing a girl’s hair during band practice.

The film starts off with the narrator catching everyone up on how long it has been since the last movie and what has changed since. Ralphie is now into cars and girls, his brother is now into Buck Rogers, the Old Man is now even more of a cheapskate, and his mother has largely given up soaping her children for bad language.

In the first movie, outside of the furnice scenes, we had one suggested, but covered up cuss word. In this, we drop 5 “son of a bitch”’s within the first 10 minutes, and not a soap poisoning to be found.

So Ralphie is in love with a 1939 Mercury 8. It is the placeholder for the bb gun from the last film. He decides to sit in the car while it’s on the used car lot, and due to a whacky set of circumstances, a plastic reindeer tears open the roof of the car and ralphie loses his pants.

Ralphie and his friends now have to raise $85 to replace the car roof or the police will get involved. This leads to a dream sequence of ralphie on death row. Seriously, this movie just piles on the dream sequences. A Christmas Story had like maybe 4-5 dream sequences in the whole movie. This one has 4-5 in the first half hour.

So to raise money, Ralphie and his friends get jobs at Higbee’s. The funniest part of the whole movie occurs when they are gift wrapping and a swarm of shoppers start screaming at them to hurry up, and one lady’s baby gets gift wrapped.

Then comes a montage of them doing terrible jobs at various departments in the store. They eventually end up in the mail room with vacuum tubes. Flick, being the curious type, sticks his tongue in one of the vacuum tubes and gets stuck.

All I gotta say, thank god it was at face level and not crotch level.

They all end up getting fired after they are used as elves and they get into a fight because the Santa is drunk and terrible.

Meanwhile, The Old Man is proving even more of a cheapskate. He talks about everyone trying to scam people. The price of the turkey has gone up, so he decides to go ice fishing for christmas dinner. He finally decides to buy a new furnace, but instead of buying from a furnace repairman, he buys a used one from a renovator. And he refuses to help Ralphie with his car situation. Ultimately everything works out, but usually after everything has gone wrong first.

Ralphie manages to get his job back and eventually raises the full $85. But suddenly decides to buy his dad the leg lamp for christmas, and buy a poor family a tire and a Chinese christmas dinner. As a result he only pays the car salesman $39.

You know, I wish I could pay $46 for a replacement tire, a leg lamp, and a dinner for 6. Shame I would go to jail for it though.

Nope, the car salesman approves of Ralphie’s determination, and he had sold the car anyways, so alls well that ends well.

Ralphie ends up getting the car for christmas, and he even gets the girl he was fantasizing over because he got beat up while dressed as a reindeer. She’s into that stuff. Ralphie drives off with the girl as the movie comes to a close.

Honestly, the first half of this movie is just beating you over the head with “REMEMBER THE FIRST MOVIE!” references and it is unbearable. However, once you get past the Santa scene, it honestly turns around and is not that bad. Wouldn’t call it good, but it stops with all the forced references and becomes a lot easier to watch. So if you can survive the first half, I recommend it.

Tomorrow: We’ll end sequel week with a prequel to a movie we watched during the worst halloween movies ever.