Movie Review: A Christmas Story Christmas

It's been 40 years since we first got to experience the magic of Christmas through the blue eyes of Raphie Parker. When it was released on November 18, 1983, it only had a moderate amount of success. Critics claimed that at the time, holiday-type movies just weren't the thing viewers wanted at the time. It won awards in Canada, but by Christmas in America, it had already left the theaters.

Fast forward to the last 20 years, and the film has become a Christmas cult classic even being aired for 24 hours on TNT which has become a tradition. In fact, that's the only channel we would watch when I was growing up once the marathon began. Quite honestly, I think I have only seen the original movie a hand full of times sitting and watching it all of the way through. The rest of the time, it's me just stopping to watch different sections of it as I go on with the day.

Now, here we are 40 years later, and we are introduced to an actual sequel. I say this is an actual sequel despite there having been other movies made with the same idea of characters from the original, but they never came close to hitting the mark of the first. Honestly, we can consider those other movies to be the same as the all-female cast of Ghostbusters.

Firstly, we actually get to see the original characters come back! That's exciting in itself! In fact, you get most of the gang back together: Ralphie, Flick, Randy, Schwartz, Grover, and even Scut Farcus with his yellow eyes! They never were yellow by the way, but I swear they were. The original cast makes their return to play with our nostalgic heartstrings!

We see the movie begin with Raphie as an adult, a husband, and a dad of two kids. He is attempting to become a writer. As Christmas approaches, he gets news that the old man has passed and takes the family home to celebrate Christmas with his mother in their old house. This is when the trip down memory lane starts with fans of the movie. In fact, there are plenty of Easter eggs throughout the movie from various phrases, moves, and cinematic shots that will make you remember cues from the old movie. We get to see the famous Higbees, Santa on the giant snow mountain, a double-dog dare, and we get surprised as Scutt is no longer a bully, but his kids seem to be!

Can this new movie hold a candle to the original? No, I don't think so. However, this movie can certainly ride the original movie's coattails all it wants. Personally, I have already seen it twice since it was released yesterday. I have cried more times than I care to even admit towards the end as well. This is certainly one that will take you back down memory lane and should be watched right after you finish the first one as a sequel that hopefully will stick around as long as the first one has.