Jingle All the Way (1996)

GET TO DA TURBO MAHN!

I don't have as much to say about Jingle All the Way as I did about Home Alone. Mainly because there aren't really any layers to the characters or plot like Kevin and the burglars had, and it's not a great film, and I'm pretty sure they made a terrible sequel too, but here we go. And it's an Arnie film so of course it's terribly great.

So Ahnold plays Howard Langston who's some sort of businessman who is always too busy for his family. His annoying son Timmy or Jimmy or Jamie watches a TV show called Turbo Man and wants one of the action figures for Christmas, but somehow busy Howard forgets to buy his son the toy, as you do, and has a race against time to find one. He runs into a man in the same situation, a disgruntled postal worker called Myron (played by Sinbad) and they go through the film as friends, enemies and friends again as his role isn't actually given any grounding and we never know if he's good or bad. But he's funny, so I guess that makes it okay.

They go through a load of hoops to try and find this rare Turbo Man, from winning a raffle, to winning it from a radio station and even chasing down a child in a kids play centre and grabbing the ball out of the child's mouth. (Another scene that would never be allowed to be filmed these days) Howard also ends up in a factory full with crook Santas, one of which is played by Paul Wight A.K.A The Big Show.

There's a big special effects ending which actually doesn't look too bad, and everyone is happy. Yayy.

Although the film isn't particularly that great I still loved it as a kid. The stupidity of the film, especially Myron's character, was just funny. And Ahnold punches a reindeer in the face then gives it beer. He also shouts some of my favourite Arnie quotes, "He got two!", and "Who told you you could eat my cookies?!"

   

But when I got a bit older I realised the film discusses themes such as alcoholism, crime, divorce and materialism and I'm very sure that the only people this film would appeal to is fathers going through the exact same situation as Howard. The film mainly glorifies the materialism of Christmas and makes the whole film about finding the only toy that annoying little Timmy will appreciate, and then at the end he just decides he doesn't even want the toy anymore because his dad is now his hero. Yeah, have fun playing with your no-Turbo Man doll while your dad is being a busy businessman and forgetting about you again, you little jerk.