The Night Before the Night Before Christmas (2010 TV Movie) User Reviews

Reviewed the same night

[boblipton · 6/10 · 20 November 2010]

A fine professional cast, including the sadly underused -- by the industry, anyway -- Jennifer Beals enliven a very pleasant little Christmas movie. R.D. Reid makes an amusing, if rather Irish sounding Santa Claus who has taken a tumble off a roof and lost his memory -- and what, pray tell, will happen to Christmas without Santa? Cue Jordan Prentice as a rather overwhelmed head elf who struggles to get Santa back in shape using Miss Beals' dysfunctional family.

That's the set up and the movie rings the changes on it in a workmanlike fashion. I have some minor issues with the pace of the direction, but the cast goes through its paces with such obvious goodwill that I can't bring myself to cavil. A merry night before Christmas eve to you all who watched this.

Heartwarming movie but does not look like it takes place in Milwaukee, WI.

[deblmitch · 7/10 · 26 December 2014]

This is a nice Christmas movie that shows the importance of family togetherness during the holidays. Busy families can learn the importance of priorities from this movie.

Since I live in the Milwaukee, WI area the first thing I noticed was there were green and orange leaves on the trees. Leaves fall off trees in October and early to mid November in the Milwaukee area. Milwaukee is cold. The average high temperature is around 30 degrees and there is snow on the ground 50 percent of Christmas Eve's. Occasionally the temperature drops below zero in December. It sure would be nice if we could walk outside with our coats open and without gloves like in the movie. Maybe there could have been more research done so the weather was more accurate.

When Christmas is at stake, the Fox family steps in...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 16 May 2017]

While "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas" is not a Christmas classic, it is definitely a movie that is well-worth watching for a Christmas movie marathon. And it is a movie that is quite suitable for the entire family to enjoy.

I watched "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas" around Christmas in 2016 along with a heap of other movies together with the family for a Christmas movie marathon. And it turned out that "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas" was actually one of the better movies to make it across the screen that year. This is the type of movie that appeals to an audience of all ages, because there is something for everyone to enjoy here.

The story told in "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas" is a fun, albeit somewhat off-beat, Christmas tale. It is about Santa Claws who accidentally crash into the Fox family's house, ends up with amnesia and loses his magical gift sack. With Christmas at stake, the family must assist the hapless elderly man to retrieve his sack and save Christmas.

It is a fun and wholesome story that is good paced, and there is a good amount of funny situations throughout the movie. Actually the movie combines the family element quite nicely with a pinch of drama and more comedy.

The acting in the movie was good, of course taking into consideration what kind of movie this is. But all in all, people did perform well up to what was expected. Personally, I wasn't familiar with the people on the cast list, so it was a refreshing change of pace with unfamiliar faces on the screen.

"The Night Before the Night Before Christmas" makes for a wholesome entertaining movie to sit down with the family to watch during the Christmas holidays.

Tough to watch

[nickdnz-75-765239 · 3/10 · 8 August 2014]

I joined this site to say this.

Television movies get a lot of flack. The reality is these movies often operate on a shoe-string budget, select their casts for who is willing to take the role and generally have a fairly limited scope when writing movies for companies such as Hallmark. Christmas television movies must be the most difficult to write for - with every possible idea being rehashed and reused ad nauseam to promote the festive season.

With that said this movie was not able to hit the level of mediocrity of a D level television movie. It was uninspired, unoriginal and felt like yet another pay-check for an average director. This movie was obviously not made for me - I didn't get smothered by Chief at the end of 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest', but I don't know why someone would put any effort into making the movie. I can take a bad movie when it's done with a bit of passion and enthusiasm, but this movie felt like running through the motions.

Passable But Not much more

[Christmas-Reviewer · 6/10 · 27 August 2017]

BEWARE OF FALSE REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 300 HOLIDAY FILMS & SPECIALS. I HAVE NO AGENDA.

The Night Before the Night Before Christmas is a 2010 Hallmark Channel Original Movie about Angela and Wayne Fox (Jennifer Beals and Rick Roberts) who are workaholic parents.

Santa sets off on his Christmas duties a day early and crashes into the Fox family's house. He ends up with amnesia and loses his magic sack of presents. The Fox family are a modern and broken family. The parents are preoccupied with work and the kids are not very festive. Forced to set their own problems aside and work together, they help Santa find his magical bag of toys.

The whole family can enjoy this film. Its not a b ad film and most of the characters are fleshed out. Its worth a viewing.

What I found funny is that all trees in this film were green and full of leaves. Its Winter time the trees should be bare!

The Night Before Christmas was great

[brantley7 · 10/10 · 4 December 2011]

Another Hallmark Christmas movie with plenty of the right elements but somewhat uninspired.

Santa crashes and loses his memory. He takes up residence at a disjointed, not really in the spirit of Christmas, family led by the ever watchable Jennifer Beals. His chief elf(not from 'Elf'), nicely played by Jordan Prentice, works with the family to try to help Santa get it together in time for you know what.

The family is too tied up in their work and own affairs to appreciate the meaning of the season and each other.

It's clean and well meaning but not super funny or novel. I'd say enjoy it for what it is. Merry Christmas!

Fun action believable, some sad family scene, but it ended with everyone finding themselves and the meaning of Christmas. well worth watching. Wow, haven't seen Jennifer Beals in a while - she looks great! Looks like a fun new Christmas movie!

Fun

[Jackbv123 · 8/10 · 21 November 2017]

This is a movie that presumes Santa Claus is real complete with a magic gift bag capable of producing endless gifts. So we shouldn't expect it to be aimed strictly at adults complete with plot realism. However, unlike a lot of this kind of movies, it is also not dumbed down so much that there is nothing for adults. This is a fun movie for the entire family.

There is some good humor that both kids and adults will appreciate. There is one ridiculous disaster to ruin Christmas after another and they get resolved in crazy ways. First we go through the wave of people who encounter the memoryless Santa and his head elf. And meanwhile Nigel the elf is trying to come up with ways to spark Santa's memory. Then they start chasing the bag around.

The movie is a little preachy about parents who don't pay enough attention to their children. The acting could be better but it's fine for this type of movie. Rebecca Williams who plays Hannah, the high school age member of the Fox family, is obviously way older than her character. But these faults can be overlooked if you just sit back and enjoy their crazy trek to save Christmas. And as we'd expect there are some heartwarming moments.

The Best Father Christmas EVER!!!

[P3n-E-W1s3 · 9/10 · 22 December 2016]

Okay, so it's Christmastime and you want to get into the festive spirit by watching a movie... which one do you choose? They all have similar plots and twists that they've become staid.

That can be said about this movie too as you have a Santa who's lost his memory (Santa Who? (2000) & The Search For Santa Paws (2010)); Santa loses his sack; and a dysfunctional family find come together through the spirit of Christmas (The Family Man (2000) & Home Alone (1990)).

So what makes this film worth watching. The script is well written and keeps up a decent pace throughout the film, and there are some excellent funny lines that shine through -

Angie Fox - "How did we miss the eight tiny reindeer and sleigh in our garden?"

Wayne Fox - "Because we were too busy with the Santa in our house!"

The actors are well above average, with (the much underused) Jennifer Beals shining through and R D Reid giving us a great "Jolly Santa" even though he's lost his memory - this is my favourite portrayal of "Big- Red" to date. Then there's Jordan Prentice as the dapper dressed though highly-strung Nigel Thumb. These three lift the movie out of "good" into "wonderful" cast; making the movie more appealing.

That said there are a couple of slight encumbrances with the film. The direction could've been better and a little tighter. There could've been some better camera shots at times, everything seems a little safe. Also, the reason why Santa was sent out a day early grated on me a little. None of Santa's little helpers, Mrs Clause, or even Santa himself realised it was the day before Christmas Eve. Surely for somebody who's been doing the same job for thousands of years, you'd expect him to remember what day it is (there are not many important things to remember as Santa, but this has to be a major one).

This is one Christmas film I would recommend to everyone and I will watch again when it's on... I may even purchase a copy.

494 Ratings but only a 5.8 Average - This is woefully low for such a good film.

must watch for Christmas season

[naresh-gharat · 9/10 · 12 December 2015]

even though i am watching this movie in 2015,i must say... This is an excellent family Christmas movie... The main & most IMPORTANT feature of this movie is, from start to end this movie sticks to main concept of it & that is >> Christmas & FAMILY <<

it never looses its family & Christmas oriented track throughout entire running time.

So if you want to see a perfect Christmas movie this holiday season..( without stupid romantic angles or enemies or stupid fight sequences....)

Please please please !!! watch this movie...

a fun one

[theoneandonlyjimmypage · 15 December 2014]

I think that i need to watch 100 Christmas STORIES EVERY Holiday season , so then- I do. My list will include the serious, the light, the Beautiful, the Sad, the Sentimental, the silly and the funny....Great Cast and funny premise....there's like a SNL feel to this almost sort of.Will or Won t it be watched above many of the other cute or fun X mas tales.....i think so because its sharp in the right way. That is a consideration, the knowledge many , many people also will tune in....Beautiful People....Crisp Dialogue...and yes it screams aw! Glad i watched this one it makes for perfect bed-y-bye! Twas the Night Before the Night Before Christmas.