A Merry Friggin Christmas Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

A Merry Friggin Christmas Blu-ray Movie Review

'Twas the night before Christmas...

Reviewed by Martin Liebman November 26, 2014

Outside of the true meaning of Christmas, the December 25th holiday has become a time for hope and belief, of gift giving and egg nog and a second round of turkey in as many months, a time of hustle and bustle, a time for old wounds to be reopened and, sometimes, healed. The worlds of Christmas belief and Christmas healing are at the center of A Merry Friggin' Christmas, longtime television Director Tristram Shapeero's Hallmark-channel sort of story of an estranged father and son making a late-night round trip to retrieve a special Christmas present for a very deserving young boy who still believes in the magic of Santa Claus. The movie is flat and predictable, for the most part, never quite as charming, funny, or deep as it wants to be and should have been. It's a bland holiday film with little incentive to watch outside of its status as one of the very last films in which the late Robbin Williams (Jumanji, Dead Poets Society) would appear.

You don't believe?

The Mitchler family -- father Boyd (Joel McHale), mother Luann (Lauren Graham), daughter Vera (Bebe Wood), and son Douglas (Pierce Gagnon) -- is gearing up for another holiday at home, away from the vice grips of family and all the suffering that usually comes with Christmas get-togethers. That pain is particularly evident in Boyd's life. His father Mitch (Robin Williams) ruined the spirit, meaning, and magic of Christmas at an early age. He and his father have never really seen eye-to-eye since. Boyd has thus made it his mission in life to make sure that Christmas is, for his family, something special. Though the too-smart-for-her-age Vera has begun to see through the "Santa Clause" ruse, Douglas still believes in that magic, and Boyd is determined to make sure that, at least for this one last year, the family's Christmas is as picture-perfect as he and Luann can make it.

That all changes when Boyd's oddball brother Nelson (Clark Duke) calls with amazing news. He's a new father (the boy isn't his own but instead the offspring of his ex-girlfriend and another man with whom she slept) and he wants nothing more than for Boyd to be the child's godfather. Boyd gleefully accepts but is then told that the ceremony will take place on Christmas eve, meaning Christmas with the entire family, his father included. Boyd packs the family and moves Christmas to his father's house, but they forget one important detail: Douglas' gifts. If those gifts aren't there, the Santa illusion will be broken and all of Boyd's hard work will be for nothing. After Douglas crawls into bed, Boyd sets out to make the eight hour round trip and return with the gift before morning. Circumstances dictate that Boyd will have to travel with none other than his father if he's to make it home and back in time to see his ideal vision for Christmas come to pass. The only things that can stop him? A heavy gas pedal foot or the very real possibility of literal or figurative death by way of a family feud that has nowhere left to go but to the explosive stage.

A Merry Friggin' Christmas is a real hit-and-miss experience that, unfortunately, offers more of the former and less of the latter. The film lacks tight cohesion despite a fairly straightforward narrative drive. Boyd and Mitch's clashes lack dramatic creativity and nuance. Despite some good verbal sparring between Actors Robin Williams and Joel McHale, the movie generally feels structurally inept and lacking in dramatic value. It's transparent and void of identifiable purpose, and even its all-star cast -- including the likes of Williams, McHale, Graham, Duke, Candice Bergen, and Oliver Platt -- can't seem to find much to do with the material. Most performances feel flat and uninspired outside of those aforementioned few good barbs tossed around by the leads. Otherwise, the movie is a sinkhole of holiday, road trip, and dysfunctional family movie cliché that never finds its footing and certainly doesn't leave much more than a lump of coal for audiences who give it an honest go.

A Merry Friggin Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Merry Friggin Christmas decks the halls with a passable but underwhelming 1080p transfer. Details are fair but a bit flat, never revealing the sort of truly intricate, eye-popping textures associated with the best HD video presentations. Indeed, facial features, clothing lines, and other basic objects fail to produce much in the way of lifelike texture, but that doesn't mean the image is dull or otherwise devoid of nice detailing. Image clarity is strong, and little bits and pieces -- the wall of a worn-down bathroom or a filthy santa beard, for example -- find enough visual pizzazz to satisfy basic HD requirements. Colors aren't particularly bold, favoring a fairly flat, nondescript sort of appearance. The image is a bit pasty and a touch warm and dark on the whole, too, never really stretching to give the film's colors a chance to shine. Black levels never stray too far from a natural presentation. The image does suffer from some light background banding and compression artifacts. Overall, however, this is a decent image reflective of a lower budget movie and a lower budget Blu-ray.

A Merry Friggin Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Merry Friggin Christmas lacks a lossless audio option, chiming in with only a Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation. The track is unsurprisingly flat and lacking much presence beyond a fair front end spacing, cursory surround support, and a few nice little directional-specific sound effects. Musical clarity is fine but the track fails to deliver the sort of robust, effortlessly enveloping and lifelike presentation listeners expect from a new release. Minor environmental effects are suitably integrated, but a few heavier elements, such as a shotgun blast, lack focus and power. The film is a dialogue intensive one, and the spoken word, while not booming or authoritative, comes through with adequate center-based focus and clarity. This is a track that gets its job done but does so with little in the way of extra effort or attention to fine sonic detail.

A Merry Friggin Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

A Merry Friggin Christmas features only cast and crew interviews (1080p). Participants include Robin Williams (4:05), Joel McHale (6:34), Tim Heidecker & Wendi McLendon-Covey (2:11), Lauren Graham (1:27), Robin Williams & Joel McHale (5:23), Clark Duke (3:41), Candice Bergen (2:10), and Oliver Platt (2:27).

A Merry Friggin Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Merry Friggin Christmas tends to recall far better Holiday-themed movies like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Bad Santa (also starring Lauren Graham), but it's unfortunately nowhere near as good as any of those, despite most of the appropriate pieces being in place. The movie is disappointingly flat and lacking substance, instead favoring a predictable outcome with precious little heart even where there's an obvious, gaping hole where it should be. It's a decent enough time killer but it's far from the next great Christmas comedy classic. Phase 4's Blu-ray release of A Merry Friggin' Christmas features passably bland video, decent audio, and a handful of extras in the way of cast and crew interviews. Rent it.