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Christmas Do Over
Score: 65%
Rating: Not Rated
Publisher: Sony Pictures Home
                  Entertainment

Region: 1
Media: DVD/1
Running Time: 90 Mins.
Genre: Family/Comedy/TV Series
Audio: English 5.1 (Dolby Digital)
Subtitles: English, Spanish

Features:
  • Previews

Do you ever get that feeling of déjà vu? For Kevin (Jay Mohr), Christmas day becomes his repeating day in ABC Family's Christmas Do Over. Kevin plans a very short visit when he has to go to his ex-family-in-law's house to see his son, Ben (Logan Grove), and ex-wife, Jill (Daphne Zuniga), along with her overly hateful parents (Tim Thomerson, Adrienne Barbeau). The plan goes into action fine at first, but then Kevin begins seeing everything going wrong in front of him, starting with the Easy Bake Oven that he bought for his son and ending when his ex-wife's boyfriend proposes.

The feeling of déjà vu isn't just for the movies. There seems to be a rash of rehashed Groundhog Day movies as of late, and Christmas Do Over is no exception. In this incarnation, Kevin is stuck in a small town because the only road in/out gets blocked by a giant boulder, and nobody will remove it on Christmas day, so Kevin is forced to relive the day until he gets it right.

Throughout each day, Kevin goes through several steps of realization of the events, from denial to acceptance and repentance. In his pursuit to figure out how to make it past midnight without popping up and ringing the doorbell day in and day out, he begins to again fall in love with Jill again. In his countless efforts to win her back, Kevin does whatever he can to disrupt Todd's (David Millbern) plans, as well as become a better father to Ben.

While this film was made for TV originally, it still follows the same tired old formula that's been redone over and over now. The difference with Christmas Do Over compared to some of the others out there is that the acting is quite bad, and the movie is very predicable. While it may be a good family film that everyone can watch, it may be better to pick up other Christmas classics and pass over Christmas Do Over.

Included in the disappointment with the DVD release of Christmas Do Over is that there really aren't any special features, unless you consider "Previews" to be special. No "making of" or "behind the scenes" at all... just the movie. Considering all of this combined, it is hard to recommend anything more than a family night rental, because Christmas Do Over is at least worth that.



-Woody, GameVortex Communications
AKA Shane Wodele

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