khnyr44

I can't believe this hasn't been suggested. You thought the Love Guru was bad? Oh my, this is much, much worse. For consideration, I submit to you: Slap Shot 2 - Breaking the Ice. Stephen Baldwin. Gary Busey. The over the title "stars." Two names that are not brought up nearly enough on the show. A hockey movie about fake, staged hockey games (think Harlem Globetrotters.) It's set 25 years after the first "Slap Shot." One implausibility after another. Most of the hockey is CG garbage. The acting is terrible. The script is worthless. The ending should go down as a war crime. 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. I can't find box office numbers. I believe the budget was $8 million. I don't know where the other $7 million went. As a hockey person, this movie is an embarrassing stain on the game. The original movie with Paul Newman is a classic. The fact this movie shares anything with the original is offensive. I cannot figure out how or why in the hell the movie was made. I don't know if there will be enough interest to do it, but I'd love to see this torn apart.

I actually sat down and watched this horrible, horrible movie today. Of the many, many horrible takeaways, I have to lead with one over all thought: How can a movie rip off the plot of the first one, and yet totally miss the point of the first movie. The first was a lot of stories and gags, but was about a kid getting a cherished Christmas toy, and that's the point, a simple story. The sequel tries to impart a lesson. I'm not sure what it is because, well, it fails so totally and miserably, but I think it's something about working hard or some such crap. This movie cannot get out of its own way long enough to sustain a clear message. The "plot" is driven about 15 plot-lines of barely incoherent stories, non-sequitors, and failed call-backs, centered around a teenage Ralphie wanting a car/wanting to pay for damage to a car/winning the dream girl; I can't freaking tell what the main idea is. Around this flimsy premise this a set of crummy subplots, such as furnace fighting, Randy breaking a filling, or the Dad being a cheapskate. All are devoid of any charm or like-ability. The actor who plays Ralphie, IMO, looks nothing like the original. And he's not very good, stumbling through awkwardly delivered dialog with all the charm of a dead skunk. Randy, however, is spot on and, funnily enough, it the smartest character in the movie. The mother creeped me out the whole movie, because her face never moved. Not that she had no emotion, but the muscles never actually moved. Like a bizarre botox experiment gone wrong. But by far was the WORST thing about this movie was the only above the title actor, Daniel Stern. And this performance was awful. I can't even find the words to describe how bad it was. 80 minutes of painful scene chewing, he attempted to give the character depth it didn't want and didn't need, and failed spectacularly. It's hard to think this guy ever had any acting chops, because it doesn't show through. The direction, well, it was from the same guy who directed "Jingle All the Way," Brian Levant. I think that fact speaks for itself. Same for the writer, former "Doctor Dolittle" scribe, Nat Mauldin. So, should you see this movie. No. It's so very, very bad. And not in any sort of a fun way, it's just a poor knock-off that doesn't deserve the Christmas Story moniker. Only to be watched as a curiosity, or out of sheer boredom.