I'll Be Home for Christmas
Theatrical Release: November 13, 1998 / Running Time: 86 Minutes / Rating: PG Director: Arlene Sanford Cast:
Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Jake Wilkinson), Jessica Biel (Allie), Adam LaVorgna (Eddie), Gary Cole (Jake's Dad), Eve Gordon (Carolyn), Andrew Lauer (Nolan), Sean O'Bryan (Max)
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Disney's 1998 live-action holiday comedy I'll Be Home for Christmas stars Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who rose to popularity earlier in the decade, as Jake Wilkinson, a self-centered, cunning, bratty college student in California. In many ways, this film signaled the end of the JTT era - when he was a major star in the public eye, he was just a cute pre-teen playing the wisecracking middle Taylor son and similar roles in family-friendly Disney fare...by the time this film was released in the fall of 1998, Thomas had left "Home Improvement" for what would be the show's final season. In the five years since this, Thomas has very much fallen of the celebrity map as he focuses on his college studies, marking "I'll Be Home" his last family-friendly and visible starring role.
The film was generally bashed by critics upon its release, and as a Disney/JTT vehicle, this is far less enjoyable than his previous work both in voice in The Lion King and his live-action fare like the amiable Man of the House and Tom and Huck. Here, Thomas is too old to play the precocious personality, and he comes off as rather unlikable.
Actually, quite a bit of the film comes off as unlikable. The set-up is this: Jake doesn't want to come home to New York for Christmas with his dad (Gary Cole, who would unforgettably play Lumbergh in Office Space the following year), sister and new stepmother. Instead he'd rather spend Christmas in San Cabo Lucas beach with his girlfriend Alley (Jessica Biel, of "Seventh Heaven" fame). But Jake's dad offers his son a Porsche to come home by Christmas Eve dinner and spend the holiday with his family. Yeah, I know, nothing says family Christmas like giving your son a car to get him to come home.
But here comes the curveball - Jake is left in the middle of the desert with a Santa Claus suit on the day he is supposed to come home by some of his goonier college friends, who were dissatisfied with the services Jake rendered to help them with their final exam (in the universe that this movie takes place, the professor doesn't suspect anything when four jocks are all getting beeped during the final, which doesn't surprise one so much considering the university's final exam has fill-in-the-blank answers like "Frederic Douglass"). An improbable cross-country trip to get home for Christmas ensues, and Jake encounters a variety of colorful characters along the way.
I'll Be Home for Christmas tries to be hip and modern, but the movie's tone is so self-aware and unrealistic that one never feels that anything but far-fetched. Nevertheless, it is mildly entertaining anyhow to watch Jake encounter a barrage of dim-witted characters who he attempts to use in his quest to get home to Westchester County. Sure, it's a bit preachy, obnoxious, sappy, lacking real emotion and filled with some really poor attempts at humor.
I actually had rather high expectations considering how much I enjoyed Tom and Huck, Man of the House, and Wild America and I was letdown. I'm sure however that many people weren't big fans of the three aforementioned movies and so it is likely that they would view I'll Be Home with even more disdain for its lightweight hipness, sappy heartless drama, and lamebrain humor.
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