Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A non-review by Prof. Popinjay

I do not understand why so many people crap on this movie! The acting is terrible except for Sinbad and Phil Hartman, the plot is predictable and the jokes are all groaners. HOWEVER! Jake Lloyd (aka youngest Anakin Skywalker) is in this movie and in a fantasy sequence we see him downing a bottle of hooch! That alone makes this a worthy watch! You can pretend this is where it all went downhill for lil orphan Ani. Delinquency of a minor is comedy gold!

        Aside from that, we see a fist fight between Arnold Swartzenegger and a gang of Santa Clauses, one of whom was a ninja Santa using candy canes as nunchuku. A NINJA SANTA ladies and gentlemen! Name another movie that has that!

       I really liked Jake Lloyd’s friend in the film who happened to be the son of Phil Hartman’s character. Phil was a total douche you loved to hate but his son was just a normal kid. A pretty nice kid at that. Most films would make the offspring of an asshat also be a hat for asses but it was nice to see the kids actually having a friendly relationship even while the adults in their lives were petty dork-mops dunked in turd water.

       Honestly the only thing I found disappointing in this film is the lack of Carl Weathers who I believe should be in ALL Schwarzenegger films without exception.

       Okay so there was a scene with an explosion that was disappointing but I think they might have toned it down and made it comical because it was supposed to be a feel good Christmas movie. But it gave me an idea. There needs to be a Schwarzenegger Christmas film where an action movie is happening all around Arnold and he is completely oblivious to all of it while he just does silly Christmas hijinks in the foreground. That would be great!

Seriously though, the end of this movie had me all choked up. Seriously. I don’t understand why people hated this. Yeah it was a slapped together vehicle for Arnie to do a Christmas family film and Sinbad and Phil carried most his weight but it was fun. Just watch it with the right people.