Year: 1996
Director: Brian Levant
Country: US
Language: English
Jingle All the Way represents Arnold Schwarzenegger's fourth attempt at a "straight" comedy (guess which the others are). The general idea is "fish-out-of water", the big, hulking action hero struggling to overcome "normal" problems was an odd fascination for late 90's American audiences. I suppose the film could be ambitious in the way it deals out a good old Christmas lesson, but we find the true meaning of Christmas is...material things. Wait, what!?
In this, a father vows to get his son a Turbo Man action figure for Christmas, however, every store is sold out of them, and he must travel all over town and compete with everybody else in order to find one.
I'll admit that there is some actual comedy in Jingle All the Way. Phil Hartman plays his role as the greedy conniving antagonist neighbor extremely well. "I think your wife is in the shower, want me to check for you?". Of course Hartman could do almost any role well. I also enjoyed the scene where Schwarzenneger takes on the many santas, some of which are ninjas. There are moments of comedy...not brilliance, but adequacy.
Anakin Skywalker puts on an ok performance considering he's like 5 at the time of this film. Sinbad's comedy is awful, but I'll put that down to the screenwriting. Jingle All the Way isn't the best written film, which is apparent in all the fluff and filler. The narrative is unfocused, the desire to satirize the toy market is weak at best. It borders on boring, though I suppose families will find it entertaining.
Being good-natured, mildly violent and family-friendly ensured Jingle All The Way was a moderate commercial success, although it didn't do as well as the majority of the govenator's other more violent ventures. It's easily one of the most forgettable films in his filmography.
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