Jingle All The Way (1996)

It's no secret that Arnold Schwarzenegger's fame was built on his starring roles in some of the greatest action movies of all time. But it's also no secret that his occasional forays into comedy have never really turned out very well. They've ranged from either downright awful to no better than mediocre. But then you've got a movie like Jingle All The Way. It's far from the strongest entry on Schwarzenegger's résumé, but it's still oddly fun and charming in its own weird way. And hopefully, I can use this review to figure out why.

Howard Langston (Schwarzenegger) is a workaholic mattress salesman who adores his family yet can never seem to make time for them. When he disappoints his young son Jamie (Jake Lloyd) one too many times, Howard vows to make it up to him by finding Jamie the one thing he most wants for Christmas: an action figure of "Turbo-Man," his favorite TV superhero.

Doing so will not be easy, as it is Christmas Eve and Turbo-Man's toys are the hottest items on the market. So popular are they that the demand for them sparks brawls and near-riots at nearly every toy store in the city. As Howard scours the city, he finds himself repeatedly butting heads with Myron Larabee (Sinbad), a rival father similarly hunting for a Turbo-Man figure. They soon become bitter adversaries as the clock to Christmas counts down and Howard is faced with the very real possibility that he'll end up disappointing Jamie again.

I've heard a ton of things about Jingle All The Way over the last decade or so, primarily that it's the goofiest Schwarzenegger movie since Batman & Robin. I mean, one of the most notable things about the movie is the running gag on Late Night with Conan O'Brien that proclaimed the movie to be an "all-time holiday classic." But I'd never actually dared to see it until a few days ago. And I'm surprised at just how truly silly Jingle All The Way actually is. Not only are some of the jokes among the corniest ever captured on film, but the movie isn't even sure what exactly it wants to be. But I'll get into that in a second.

The movie was directed by Brian Levant, whose filmmaking career hasn't given us any remotely good movies. "So bad they're good," sure, but legitimately good? Far from it. But as awful as many of Levant's movies are, his work on Jingle All The Way actually isn't too bad at all. There are some spots where it feels like generic mid-'90s family movie fodder, but Levant actually succeeds in making much of the movie a lot of fun. There's some really good cinematography, and the movie generally feels to be at least half a step above the quality of other, similar movies.

Levant does stumble here and there, though the only truly distracting flaw I could find was the very hokey, fake-looking special effect work during the climax at the Christmas parade. And it also doesn't help that Levant is working from an incredibly lame script written by Randy Kornfeld (and rewritten by an uncredited Chris Columbus). The script does have a few moments that I'll admit I thought were really funny, but for the most part, the humor is so banal that it might only elicit awkward chuckles at best.

The primary problem I had with the script, though, is that it wasn't sure what kind of movie it wanted to be. It tries balancing between a lighthearted family-friendly comedy and a satire of ultra-consumerism at its yuletide worst, but it succeeds at neither. Had the movie picked one side or the other, it might have worked. But the script's attempts to have its cake and eat it too are sadly fruitless. I actually would have enjoyed the movie had it been a dark comedy lampooning the psychotic frenzies over "fad toys" like the Cabbage Patch Kids or Tickle Me Elmo, but instead, we ended up with what we got instead.

But let's keep this train rolling by moving onward to the cast. There's a number of reasons why Arnold Schwarzenegger is more recognizable as an action star than as a comedian, and Jingle All The Way is one of them. He's got his funny moments here, I'll give him that, but a comedy simply doesn't seem like it's the right vehicle for him. Far be it for me to say an actor should be typecast, but there are just some who do so good a job at filling a certain niche that they should stick with it. Schwarzenegger can work in comedies as long as they play to his strengths (which is why I enjoy Last Action Hero even in spite of its flaws), but Jingle All The Way unfortunately doesn't do that.

Meanwhile, Jake Lloyd ― who would go on to play young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace before disappearing from Hollywood entirely ― fails to impress, while Rita Wilson is simply not good at all. I know the movie isn't much, but you'd think Wilson would have at least made an effort. But nope, no effort whatsoever. At least Sinbad put forth some effort as the closest thing the movie has to an antagonist. He's cheesy and over-the-top a lot of the time, but much like Schwarzenegger, I thought he had a few moments where he genuinely shined. In a better movie, Sinbad might have knocked it right out of the park.

The movie's best work, however, come from Jim Belushi and the late Phil Hartman. Belushi is a lot of fun in his extended cameo as a mall Santa operating a counterfeit toy ring on the side, while Hartman is awesome as the Langston family's annoying "super-dad" neighbor. He's the most annoying pain in the ass you've ever seen in your life and you want to reach into the movie and smack him, but Hartman plays it with such aplomb and glee that he's really enjoyable too.

Jingle All The Way is far from the "all-time holiday classic" that the characters from Conan O'Brien's old talk show would argue it was, but it isn't insufferably bad either. It's one of those movies that I thought was actually pretty entertaining even though it's very flawed. There's a ton of other Christmas movies I'd recommend watching before this one, but truthfully, you could do a lot worse than Jingle All The Way. So have a merry Christmas, a happy holiday season, and remember: Put that cookie down! Now!

Final Rating: **