‘A Christmas Story Christmas’ Review: Ralphie Returns in a Forgettable but Sweet Sequel

It’s arduous to think about now, however A Christmas Story wasn’t precisely a success when it opened in theaters in 1983. It’s primarily as a result of movie’s fixed rotation on cable tv through the vacation season that it achieved its present standing as a beloved Yuletide traditional. So it makes excellent sense within the present streaming period that its long-belated, awkwardly titled sequel A Christmas Story Christmas ought to make its debut on HBO Max. (Yes, there was 1994’s My Summer Story and 2012’s direct-to-video sequel A Christmas Story 2. But this movie ignores them, and so must you.)

Taking place in 1973, greater than thirty years after the unique, the movie as soon as once more stars the now middle-aged Peter Billingsley as Ralphie Parker, who’s all grown up and lives in Chicago along with his spouse Sandy (Erinn Hayes) and younger youngsters Mark (River Drosche) and Julie (Julianna Layne). A struggling author not having any success at getting his magnum opus sci-fi novel revealed, Ralphie is trying ahead to a vacation go to from his dad and mom.

But he receives unhappy news from his mother (Julie Hagerty, charmingly changing the unique movie’s Melinda Dillon, now retired), who informs him that his beloved “Old Man” (initially performed by the late Darren McGavin, given loving tribute right here) has all of the sudden handed away. So Ralphie instantly heads along with his household to his childhood residence in Indiana, the place his mom assigns him the daunting duties of making certain that the household has a contented Christmas regardless of their loss and writing his father’s obituary for the native paper. (Although the unique home was situated in Cleveland, this duplicate was constructed in Bulgaria, the place the movie was shot.)

It doesn’t take lengthy for Ralphie to reunite with family and friends members, performed by the unique performers (seeing them is as jarring as encountering your classmates at a 30^th high-school reunion). They embrace his pals Schwartz (RD Robb) and Flick (Scott Schwartz), the latter now the proprietor of the native tavern, and his previous nemesis Scut Farcus (Zack Ward), whose present occupation is just not one you’d have guessed. Ralphie additionally makes an attempt to persuade his brother Randy (Ian Patrella), now a globe-trotting businessman, to return residence for the vacations.   

Not surprisingly, the sequel encompasses a plethora of throwbacks and flashbacks to the unique, together with movie clips to jog your reminiscence within the unlikely occasion that you just haven’t just lately rewatched components of it whereas channel-flipping on Christmas Eve. (Indeed, the movie options so many Easter Eggs that it most likely needs to be titled An Easter Story Easter, though that doesn’t have the identical ring.) One of the characters once more falls sufferer to a “triple dog dare”; Ralphie engages in a wealthy fantasy life, together with an homage to classic Westerns that includes the character Black Bart; bullies nonetheless run rampant within the neighborhood; the youngsters go to Santa Claus at Higbee’s division retailer; and bodily accidents abound, requiring not one however two journeys to the emergency room.

Despite the shortage of originality, solely a Grinch would get upset on the homages, which have the comforting really feel of acquainted vacation traditions. Billingsley, nonetheless displaying a youthful enthusiasm, has aged into the function of the story’s narrator, though his commentary lacks the amusing folksiness and reflectiveness that Jean Shepherd, the writer of the e book on which the movies are primarily based, dropped at it.  

As with the unique, the sequel refreshingly doesn’t depict an idealized Christmas, however fairly one full of the messy mishaps that inevitably accompany the vacation. But it additionally paints a heartwarming portrait of members of the family and associates lovingly supporting each other. Although nothing within the screenplay by director Clay Kaytis and Nick Schenk (Billingsley, who additionally produced, has a “screen story” credit score) matches the hilarity of the primary movie’s iconic “Leg Lamp” or frozen flagpole licking incident, there are sufficient laughs to gasoline the proceedings, together with an amusing working gag involving the male patrons of Flick’s bar quaking of their boots at any time when the cellphone rings.      

A Christmas Story Christmas will hardly supplant its predecessor as a vacation perennial. Nonetheless, it’s good to know that the Parker household nonetheless is aware of easy methods to have a Yuletide good time in any case these years.