Pictures of Good Luck Charlie Movie Teddy
As someone who hasn't seen a single episode of the show and had low, if not nonexistent hopes for the movie, "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas" reads as more fever dream than film.
With its often post-verbal script, tangle of bewildering subplots, and whatever-the-opposite-of-"stacked"-is cast, this movie leaves the viewer feeling like they've just been hit by a bus--or at least, with the nagging sensation that they fell asleep halfway through the runtime and it was their own subconscious that invented that bizarre half-hour storyline about a video game LARP event in the middle of the Florida desert (an actual plot point that actually happens in the actual movie). Every ten minutes, you think you've finally gotten your bearings, and then the actors hit you with another ten-foot tidal wave of nonsensical sentimentality: as soon as you adjust to a genre-bending mother-daughter trek across the snowy Colorado tundra, boom--subplot about alien abduction. There is no adjusting; there is no escape. You either ride the wave or drown in a sea of crazy.
Have you ever been on a FlowRider? That's kind of what it's like to watch this movie.
Every single second of the film's runtime is so comically unrealistic, yet so full-throttle committed to the bit, that it will make you wonder if you've somehow slipped into a parallel dimension where people actually talk and act like this. The acting is so over-the-top that it feels like a physical assault, like Leigh-Allyn Baker is throat-punching you every time she opens her mouth; the characters are all vapid and ridiculous, and the plot is so meandering and complicated that, if the word "Christmas" wasn't liberally confetti-sprinkled throughout the entire movie, I would have quickly forgotten what on God's earth it was supposed to be about. All in all, "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas" is less of a film than it is an experience: a self-contradictory exercise in absurdism as well as a big serving of treacly Disney mawkishness, like a Camus manuscript produced by the Hallmark channel. If you're planning on watching this movie, I have to warn you: it will stay with you for several delirious hours after the credits roll. It will consume your life.
And I loved every moment of it.
Obviously, the entire thing is ridiculous, with one particularly emotional moment--followed up by a classic mid-2000s piano song (which was, I believe, written for the movie) entitled "Christmas With You"--making me burst out laughing in my living room. The jokes are overdone and the occasional "serious" bits are almost uniformly ludicrous. However, the few jokes that are actually, genuinely, incisively funny stand out. I can't tell you how many times my family have quoted this movie around the holidays, whether it's the plummy proclamation of "'That's exactly what the holidsays are like at my house!'", the eternally classic, "'Get 'er away from moi chickens!'", or sometimes just the simple chilling, words: "Chuck Jablowsky." I'd also like to say that the physical comedy in this movie is on point, and especially in that regard, the whole production is nowhere near as cheap-looking as you're expecting. The scenes where they're in the Yugo are actually kind of hilarious, in an intentional way, and there's a heavily-foreshadowed reveal halfway through the movie that (without spoilers) genuinely surprised and delighted me--which, despite the bizarre and unnecessary circumstances the writer decided to wrap it in, landed pretty well. The setup and payoff, in that one scene, almost made up for the surrounding mess, which is a feat in and of itself.
It's not just the behind-the-camera work that's memorable, either. All of the actors, though terrible, do exactly what they need to do in their respective roles--I trash talked Leigh-Allyn Baker a little bit earlier in this review, but I want to stress that despite the seemingly insurmountable odds, she completely steals this entire movie. As Amy Duncan, the tiny, infuriated, MMA-style-Thumbelina character, she so consistently conflates "my eyes are open very wide" with "I am feeling emotions" that she redefines the idea of Naive Camp for an entire generation--and I'm glad she did. The kids are all awful in various charming, hilarious ways. Eric Allan Kramer is actually pretty good as the hapless dad besieged by hyper-critical in-laws. Debra Monk, a weirdly famous player to find in the midst of this Noises-Off-esque farce, knows exactly what her role is and plays it to perfection, with the help of a truly breathtaking wig--watching her scenes, I couldn't help but wonder why she would choose to participate in a production like this, but I'm glad she did, because she totally sells it.
In a film with more plotlines than a Shonda Rhimes show and a more diverse array of settings than Shantaram, these actors are the glue holding the whole story together, and the fact that they manage even a vague approximation of cohesiveness is something that should have earned them all some kind of honorary Oscar.
After reading this review, I hope you'll be able to look at "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas" with new eyes: not necessarily the eyes of a devotee, as I do, but with some kind of appreciation for the masterclass in High Camp that director Arlene Sanford has delivered unto us. This film is an hour and a half of pure tomfoolery, complete with copious vomit, unlawful house arrest, sunburns, the Stone of Mitrios, multiple violent assaults, and a lot of love. This Christmas, and every Christmas, I hope you give it a chance.
I'm certainly glad I did.
Pictures of Good Luck Charlie Movie Teddy
Source: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/good-luck-charlie-its-christmas/user-reviews/child