Review: Jingle All the Way (1996)

 Jingle All the Way (1996)

Rated PG for action violence, mild language and some thematic elements

Score: 3 out of 5

Now this is a Christmas movie I am nostalgic for. In its day, Jingle All the Way was a film that critics roasted on an open fire, seeing it as a symbol of Arnold Schwarzenegger's career decline in the '90s after years as the man who redefined what an action hero was, and it's easy to see why. It's a broad, farcical spoof of holiday consumerism with a ridiculous plot, Schwarzenegger playing for broad laughs instead of the straight man roles he excelled in when he normally did comedies, and a shamelessly schmaltzy ending, one where the only way to enjoy it is to recognize that you're watching a live-action Saturday morning cartoon. But it's also a film that knows what it is and does absolutely nothing to get in the way of that enjoyment. Schwarzenegger acquits himself surprisingly well playing the funny man for a change, the outrageousness of some of the directions the story takes are amusing just on the face of it, and while it's kind of wobbly for much of the first hour, it pulls itself together in the third act, ironically just as the plot goes really off the rails. It's easy to envision a much better version of this movie, but the film we got still has a lot to like about it, be it for your kids or for your inner child.

Schwarzenegger's character is named Howard Langston, but it would probably be easier to just call him Movie Dad, because that's basically the broad, instantly recognizable family movie archetype he's playing here: the upper-middle-class suburbanite father who's successful on the surface but is so caught up in his job that he constantly disappoints his wife and son back home, and has to learn a hard lesson about how to be a family man and not let work consume him. His wife Liz is starting to fall for the affections of their lecherous divorced neighbor Ted, who seems like he could become everything that Howard isn't when he's not hitting on every other woman in the neighborhood, while his son Jamie has found a surrogate father figure in Turbo-Man, the TV superhero whose action figure is the hottest toy this Christmas. Problem is, it's already the night of December 23, and even though Jamie told his dad what he wanted for Christmas weeks ago, Howard still hasn't picked up the toy. Thus begins his long quest on Christmas Eve across every mall and toy store in Minnesota to get his hands on a Turbo-Man action figure and hopefully salvage what's left of his relationship with his son.

The main body of the movie is mostly non-stop gags. Ahnold fights other shoppers more than once, chases a little girl at the Mall of America who accidentally snagged his ticket for one store's limited run of action figures, discovers a conspiracy of mall Santas and elves selling bootleg toys from Mexico, gets in a fight with a reindeer, and crosses paths several times with Myron Larabee, a blue-collar mailman played by Sinbad who's also looking for a Turbo-Man action figure and becomes Harold's main rival over the course of the film. The film tilts at satirizing the commercialism of the holiday season, from Myron's story about how watching "Santa" give the rich kids more presents ruined his life growing up to the requisite sappy ending about how the true meaning of Christmas is about family rather than having the hottest toy for Christmas, but it's all pretty shallow. This is as straightforward a family comedy as they come, a movie packed with gags that often hit thanks purely to how over-the-top they are, culminating in a finale at a parade where, thanks to shenanigans, Howard winds up actually becoming the fictional superhero Jamie idolizes and he's spent the entire movie looking for an action figure of.

Schwarzenegger is game for all of it, the role playing less to his physicality than to his goofiness. Even the action scenes are staged for comedy, like they were written with a far less jacked comic actor in mind to play Howard. I bought him as a stressed-out suburban dad watching his life fall apart, the over-the-top manner in which he was playing it lending to the film's gleefully campy, farcical tone. His irrepressible Austrian accent does create a plot hole late in the film, but the presence of that accent in a Schwarzenegger flick is like the characters in a musical breaking out into song -- you just go with it and don't ask questions. Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed most of the supporting characters in the film. Sinbad was clearly having fun playing Myron and did his best to elevate him, but the way he's written often switched on a dime from somebody trying to be Harold's buddy to a stone-cold madman whose obsession with getting a Turbo-Man doll approaches Gollum levels. Given his role as the film's main antagonist, he deserved at least a coherent characterization. Rita Wilson, meanwhile, felt wasted as Liz, Jake Lloyd felt like background scenery as Jamie, and while Phil Hartman played a great sleazeball as Ted, his character barely affected the plot and deserved a much better comeuppance. The best supporting characters were the one-scene wonders who crossed paths with Howard, from Jim Belushi's mall Santa who runs a bootleg toy operation to the overeager technician who gives Harold a quick crash course in controlling the Turbo-Man suit he gets forced into wearing in the third act.

The Bottom Line

It's dumb fun, but it's still fun, and elevated by Arnold Schwarzenegger and its unapologetic embrace of how ridiculous it is. It's no classic, but it's still a nice, candy-coated Christmas treat.