Help For The Holidays (2012)

Eva LaRue and Dan Gauthier play Sara and Scott VanCamp, a married couple who have two children, Ally (Izabela Vidovic) and Will (Mason Cook). They also run a Christmas shop, and their busiest time of year is, inevitably, on the run up to Christmas. What they don't have is any actual Christmas spirit. They've become too focused on the business, with their hectic schedule stopping them from spending as much time with the children as they might like. Thankfully, the kids have good old Uncle Dave (John Brotherton) to make life a bit more fun sometimes. And they're about to get a new helper in the house in the shape of Christine (Summer Glau), an elf sent there by Santa (Steve Larkin).

Written by Abbey Cleland Lopez (her first script) and Bob Sáenz, Help For The Holidays is a film that seems to hit all of the marks required for this type of thing, yet feels strangely lacking. It's like biting into a chocolate that is meant to have a flavoured centre and finding it hollow. All of the parts are there - the adults needing to be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas, a twinkly-eyed Santa who has faith in things working out well in the end, some elf magic, kids making big eyes, etc - but there's no feeling of any progress being made until you get to a final sequence that feels unearned and rushed.

Director Bradford May has done a few of these movies, unsurprisingly, but his filmography shows that he did very different fare both before and after this. Perhaps he wasn't as knowledgeable as others who have worked their magic in this particular, tinsel-adorned, arena, or maybe he just incorrectly relied on the script and performances to carry things along pleasantly enough.

Let's start with Summer Glau, an actress I have enjoyed in a number of other roles. She certainly has the look of a potential elf here, helped by some pointy ears that can be magicked away when she is masquerading as a normal human, but her performance is pitched at just the wrong level of naivete and over-exuberance. Brotherton does much better at striking the right tone, although it's easier for him to stay in "fun uncle" mode for most of his scenes. LaRue and Gauthier try their best, but they are hampered by a script that has them doing very little until things change, for no good reason, in time for the end credits. Vidovic and Cook are pretty decent child actors, both delivering the right level of moodiness and wide-eyed innocence, depending on what the scene needs. Last, but not least, Larkin is quite a disappointing Santa. He isn’t a bad actor with the role, he just doesn’t have that perfect look.

Although it lacks a number of the perfect ingredients to make for just the right Christmassy confection, Help For The Holidays at least has a nice sprinkling of magic throughout many scenes and benefits from a central performance that, while overdone, is at least delivered with plenty of enthusiasm.

4/10

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The Drone (2019)

If you're going to watch one movie about a possessed killer drone then it may as well be this one, a film that does a lot better with the premise than, for example, the recent reboot of Child's Play (there are a number of similarities here), and one that generally plays out much better than it probably should.

Neil Sandilands is "The Violator", a man who uses a drone to spy on females before making them his victims. Cornered by the police, the film starts off showing him being killed while holding on to his precious drone. There's an incident, of course, that puts his soul into that of the flying object, which then eventually ends up on the doorstep of a married couple, Chris (John Brotherton) and Rachel (Alex Essoe). That's when things start to get problematic, to say the least.

Directed by Jordan Rubin, who also co-wrote the script with Al and Jon Kaplan, this may not be as obviously hilarious throughout as one of their previous collaborations, Zombeavers, but it once again shows how the group have a real knack for taking a potentially ridiculous premise and managing to navigate the perfect tone throughout. The Drone starts off fairly light, despite a couple of death scenes within the first ten minutes, and it has a sense of mischief that works very nicely as small odd occurrences start to confuse the leads.

Brotherton and Essoe are both excellent in their roles, working well with one another and having a believable chemistry. Although not onscreen for long, Sandilands is allowed to make such a strong impression at the start that he casts a shadow over every minute the drone is present. Anita Briem is a lot of fun as an inappropriately flirtatious neighbour, Rex Linn does a decent enough job as a detective eventually called in to investigate the situation, and Christopher Matthew Cook somehow manages to keep a straight face during scenes in which the drone attempts to communicate with him and show him that he is actually his brother.

If you have read all of this review so far and laughed at the sheer preposterousness of the main premise, fear not. Rubin and the Kaplans are well aware of that. They play everything with a small sheen of self-awareness throughout, not stopping to point out anything in particular, but making the fun characters observe certain things, and allowing the journey to realisation to be littered with small moments of characters balking at the real explanation of events. It's a fine line, and walked well by all involved. The leads are fun and likeable, but the main premise is actually played pretty straight.

It helps that the pacing is perfect. The 82-minute runtime means it doesn't overstay its welcome. You get the set up, you get the occasional deaths, and then you get a second half that starts to build up both the bodycount and the very real threat to the leads.

Far from a perfect film, but kind of perfect entertainment (if you know what I mean). The Drone is recommended if you want a fun distraction that clocks in under an hour and a half.

7/10