Plot: A father vows to get his son a Turbo Man action figure for Christmas. However, every store is sold out, and he must travel all over town and compete with everybody else in order to find one.
As it’s Christmas week I thought I’d look back at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Christmas classic Jingle All the Way. Believe it or not, I had only seen this movie once before a couple of years ago because the trailers looked awful. I didn’t love the movie then but after watching the Extended Cut the film has grown on me and it is just good old fashioned Christmas fun.
Arnie was always surprisingly good at comedy and it’s no different here as he plays a father called Howard Langston who works too much and is never there for his son Jamie (Jake Lloyd).
Howard misses his son’s martial arts display, so in order to make it up to him he promises to get the boy whatever he wants for Christmas. Jamie desperately wants the hottest toy on the market called Turbo Man, so what ensues is holiday hijinks as Howard stops at nothing to try and find this rare toy.
His nemesis in the film is Myron Larabee (Sinbad) who initially wants to team up with Howard but he would rather go alone. I thought this was a bit dick-ish of him to be honest as I figure two heads are better than one, but this is just a movie, so best not to overthink it.
The late, great Phil Hartman is at his hilariously smarmy best here as a supposed ladies man who is trying some moves on Howard’s wife (Rita Wilson) and he nearly steals the show.
Now, obviously I wouldn’t describe this as an action picture however, it does feature Arnold fighting a bunch of Santa Clauses at one point, so it gets a pass. It’s also very well paced clocking in at around 90 minutes and the extended cut is only a few minutes longer but there are quite a few changes. Some musical cues are different, and James Belushi gets more screentime which is no bad thing as it’s awesome to have a Red Heat reunion.
The film isn’t especially funny, but this is a kid’s movie so like The Family Plan I’m not exactly the target audience, but I still have fun with it.
I like the Conan reference with Arnold punching out a reindeer just like he did with those camels back in the day.
Overall, Jingle All the Way is a fun Christmas caper with Arnie in fine form and it’s well paced with Arnold beating up Santas endlessly entertaining. The Extended Edition doesn’t change too much but I think I do prefer the theatrical cut as some of it just flows better.
