Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Pete's Christmas Blu-ray Movie Review

Honor Christmas in Your Heart and Keep It Every Day—and We Do Mean EVERY Day

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 30, 2015

Released in 2013, Pete's Christmas recycles Groundhog Day for a tween audience, but with a much bigger holiday. The film is a Canadian production that was acquired and distributed by family-fare specialists Walden Media and ARC Entertainment, which markets young people's entertainment through a partnership with Wal-Mart. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the retailing giant receives notable product placement.) Though derivative and somewhat predictable, the film is strong enough and has sufficient appeal to surge again in sales during the holiday season.

The "Pete" of the title is Pete Kidder (Zach Gordon, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and its sequels), the middle of three brothers who live in a small town. (The film company shot in Parry Sound, Ontario.) Older brother Jake (Wesley Morgan) is an obnoxious football star, while younger brother Wesley (Peter DaCunha) is a cheerful whiz kid and know-it-all, who must be harboring some secret anxiety, because he still wets the bed. Pete is . . . just Pete. Neither athletic nor brainy, he simply bumps along the rocky road of adolescence.

The Kidder family has to struggle to put a good face on the holidays this year, because father Ronald (Rick Roberts) has been laid off from his advertising job, and the family must rely on the income from mother Pamela, a veterinarian who takes calls at any time of the day or night. Pamela's smile is strained as she copes with the demands of being available 24/7 to minister to sick and injured animal companions, while also running a household for three boys and a grown man who's feeling sorry for himself.

As if the Kidder household weren't already tense enough, Ronald's estranged father (Bruce Dern, the best thing in the film) appears on their doorstep unannounced on Dec. 24. Grandpa and Ronald barely get along, and it isn't hard to see why, because Grandpa is a classic curmudgeon, criticizing everyone and everything, especially his own son. One wonders why he made the effort to turn up at all, although, on a moment's reflection, the answer should be obvious. Just before the old man stomps off in a huff late on Christmas Day, he gives Pete a small wooden box, which Grandpa says was given to him by an uncle from the old country, with instructions to pass it along at the right time.

The next morning, Pete awakens to discover that it's still Christmas Day, and no one except him realizes that time has re-set. At first he thinks everyone in the family is playing an elaborate practical joke, but it gradually dawns on him that he's caught in a time loop, where everything repeats, including the humiliating circumstances of his first encounter with cute new neighbor Katie (Bailee Madison, Bridge to Terabithia) and her mother (Victoria Fodor). Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, Pete has to experience several repetitions before he accepts the situation, and then many more before he fully plumbs the depths of one day's experience and eventually learns how to escape the infinite cycle of time repeating itself.

Director Nisha Ganatra (The Hunters) and chief writer Peter McKay lift numerous details directly from Groundhog Day, although it's a good bet that the youthful audience at which Pete's Christmas is aimed won't recognize the references. The film's setup, however, owes much more to Eighties teen classics like Sixteen Candles and Better Off Dead in its sympathetic depiction of youthful angst and alienation. Pete is at the age when young people first begin to grasp that the world is indifferent to their problems and concerns, and that even their parents are primarily absorbed in their own difficulties. The "gift" that Pete ultimately receives from his grandfather is the discovery that the only way he can have a great Christmas for himself is to create it for others—to make the day truly "Pete's Christmas". If a story is going to have a moral, that isn't such a bad one to offer, even if Pete's Christmas does resolve a few of the Kidder family's problems a little too neatly.

Pete's Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pete's Christmas was shot by Canadian cinematographer Colin Hoult (The Strain). Specific information about the shooting format was not available, but the production appears to be digital and the lighting has the style of a typical TV production for The Hallmark Channel, where the film aired. ARC's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray features a sharp and detailed image that remains bright and cheerful even when everything in Pete's life is going wrong. The whites of the snow in the many outdoor scenes are accurate without overemphasis (and snow, in its many guises, plays a big part in Pete's Christmas), and black levels appear to be accurate throughout. There is plenty of fine detail throughout the Kidder household, which is seen from multiple angles and in numerous versions as the day keeps repeating with variations introduced by Pete's interventions. Excursions into town reveal a picturesque village that could be the stand-in for a contemporary Bedford Falls.

With no extras to take up any space, ARC has mastered Pete's Christmas with an average bitrate of 27.61 Mbps, which is more than sufficient to avoid artifacts.

Pete's Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 5.1 audio mix for Pete's Christmas, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, isn't notable for surround effects. The rear speakers provide environmental ambiance and intensify a few visceral moments (such as Pete getting knocked down in a holiday football game, before he memorizes the opposition's moves and learns to dodge them), but otherwise the action is largely front-oriented, with emphasis on the dialogue, which is always clear. The cheerful score is by Lesley Barber (You Can Count on Me).

Pete's Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Except for the film's trailer (1080i; 1.78:1; 1:41), the disc has no extras. At startup, it also plays trailers for Return to Nim's Island, Dear Dumb Diary and Storm Rider, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Pete's Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Pete's Christmas is well-made PG-13 family fare that shouldn't bore the adults, at least on the first viewing. If the kids get hooked, however, multiple viewings may find the parents slipping out of the room. Bill Murray's acerbic presence was essential to the humor of Groundhog Day's constant repetition, and Zachary Gordon is no Bill Murray (is anyone?). While lacking in extras, the Blu-ray is a solid presentation from ARC and is, for the kids, recommended.