IMDb rating: 2.3/10
The Christmas Brigade brings the magic of Christmas to every day of the year.
That’s not my opinion. I’m just quoting the theme song of this (sort of) feature-length sequel to 1995’s The Christmas Light, which I reviewed last year. To my amazement, this movie was produced by Good Housekeeping Kids and New Family Movies. I’ve never heard of either of those illustrious production houses (though I’m sure there was a run on the comic book store every month when Good Housekeeping Kids hit the rack), but my point is that this was not just some experimental thing but an actual commercial release of some sort.
Dan Haggerty, who narrated the original, does not return. Santa seems to have a different voice, too, and he now sounds like one of the Superfans. The other members of the Christmas Brigade—Jennifer, Isaac, and Captain Burton—sounded the same to me. Together they patrol the earth in their spaceship, still called “Sled 2”, for some purpose that is never clearly explained.
But they have a special mission this Christmas Eve, because another spaceship is going around shrinking and stealing world landmarks. It turns out the ship is captained by the sinister Dr. D, a formerly obese man who is so proud to have gotten his weight under control that he has decided to “bring misery to every day of the year.”
I’m not making any of this up. Just watch the movie.
Isaac, who as you may recall is a whiz with gadgets, has invented a utility belt that allows him to phase through solid objects, levitate, turn invisible, and do anything else that you can animate by clicking one of the toolbar icons on your late-1990s home-computer CGI software. The belt also has some features that Isaac doesn’t know about (which is weird since he invented it), and he accidentally shrinks Captain Burton.
Worse yet, when Isaac uses his gizmo to sneak aboard Dr. D’s spaceship, Dr. D puts a mind-control device on his head that looks like a transparent donut. Together, they go to Santa’s “complex” (it was called a “compound” in the other movie), shrink Santa, and abandon him on a plant in his office, while a device on the other side of the room ticks down to midnight, when it will “shrink the complex forever.”
Unable to communicate with Burton and Jennifer when they arrive, Santa commits himself to venturing across the office to turn off the transducer-reducer before it shrinks the complex. Luckily, he has the help of some friendly beetles, who assure him that their lifespan is too short to waste time on hurting people—but not, apparently, too short to waste time on a repetitious jazz number about how they only live for 21 days.
Despite a surprisingly well animated sequence in which Sled 2 and Dr. D’s ship (both miniaturized for some reason that I didn’t catch) chase each other around Santa’s office, the heroes are unable to stop the transducer-reducer from shrinking the complex.
Isaac’s mind-control device gets broken during the excitement, so he radios the shrunken Brigade to tip them off on how to overpower the transducer-reducer. Unfortunately, his information is bogus, and the advice he gives them (to fly towards an invisible force field at “Christmas Light speed high”) will cause their deaths. Fortunately, Dr. D couldn’t resist giving them the true secret (to fly at “Christmas Light speed medium”) in the form of a terrible hamburger-related pun.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Captain Burton favored us with several hamburger puns earlier in the film, so this was a throwback to that.
A few seconds later, the movie is over, but after a repetition of the theme song, Jennifer and her sister Amy (played by Jennifer D’Onofrio, presumably the real-life sister of Amy D’Onofrio, who plays Jennifer) perform a series of Christmas carols for five minutes. Then Santa narrates an abbreviated, silent version of the original The Christmas Light. Then Jennifer and Amy sing some more songs. Then the movie ends again.
This movie was dedicated to a high-school graduating class, a fact that reinforces my suspicion that both The Christmas Light and The Christmas Brigade are some kind of school project. If so, that explains and excuses a lot—though it doesn’t explain why the good people at Good Housekeeping Kids wanted a piece of the action. I guess they know a hit when they see one.
The acting is not very good, but Amy D’Onofrio as Jennifer impressed me with her unexpectedly jaded, world-weary characterization, especially her exhausted tone of voice when reacting to one of Burton’s hamburger puns.
The animation is slightly improved from The Christmas Light, but the sound design and editing seem to have gotten worse. Dialogue is interrupted by randomly placed pauses, sound effects are sporadic, and the movie occasionally becomes completely silent for several seconds at a time.
And speaking of dialogue, the screenwriter was in rare form this time out, cranking out one-liners that would make Henny Youngman turn over in his grave:
“I was so heavy I had to iron my clothes in the driveway!”
“I guess you have your standards. They’re just low!”
“You are a big success at being a complete failure.”
“Dr. D should be an acupuncturist, because he’s sure good at sticking it to people.”
“There’s nothing wrong with him that reincarnation wouldn’t fix.”
“I don’t think you talk too much. I just think when your mind goes blank you forget to turn down the volume.”
“I once had an attorney who helped me lose 120 pounds. He got me a divorce!”
But seriously, folks.
