Even my 11 year old thought this was a poorly written and directed movie. No real love for detail, plot or characters found anywhere. This was a difficult watch and I watch the hallmark channel movies with my wife regularly and even tolerate them. Yet this was somehow harder. It's like someone just made this to make a movie for holidays to say they did. There's better movies out there to watch for holidays. This one isn't worth the time.
To explain a little more: The characters are shallow, 1 dimensional and 180 on the spot without real buildup or growth. Scene setting quality is really poor. Holding a list of presents for an entire country and talking about how much work still left and the whole list is maybe 10 names tops. Packing manually for every kid in the country? Seriously? I mean a lot of stupid things they could have easily written off to "Santa or Elf magic" but instead decided to make mundane and boring as hell. No depth at all. And acting is very shallow and poor. Maybe a 4-7 year old crowd might enjoy it. But my 11 year old was bored, my wife who watched hallmark channel movies was bored and I honestly wanted to do anything else than watch this train wreck.
To explain a little more: The characters are shallow, 1 dimensional and 180 on the spot without real buildup or growth. Scene setting quality is really poor. Holding a list of presents for an entire country and talking about how much work still left and the whole list is maybe 10 names tops. Packing manually for every kid in the country? Seriously? I mean a lot of stupid things they could have easily written off to "Santa or Elf magic" but instead decided to make mundane and boring as hell. No depth at all. And acting is very shallow and poor. Maybe a 4-7 year old crowd might enjoy it. But my 11 year old was bored, my wife who watched hallmark channel movies was bored and I honestly wanted to do anything else than watch this train wreck.