Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure why I picked Ernest Saves Christmas as part of the inaugural 12 Days of Christmas Scum Marathon. Perhaps it was because Jim Varney was quite comical as Slinky-Dog in the first two Toy Story installments. Or maybe it was nostalgia from the annual tradition of watching it around this time just before the long winter break in middle school. While I can safely say it was much better than Elf Bowling, Ernest’s antics were nowhere close to my fond remembrances of them.
I was shocked to learn (due to my extreme indifference toward him) that Ernest P. Worrell (Varney) was conceived as a local personality for television commecials which progressed into a TV series and no less than ten feature films. Having seen only a handful of those other movies, I cannot speak for the notion that Ernest is an almost self-aware, buffoonish caricature on purpose because his character merely comes off as a combination of annoying and “special.” Here we follow Ernest as he meets Santa Claus, a hot 80s teenage runaway, and some other stuff ensues as Santa attempts to woo a successor to take over the Santa throne.
The first few minutes are acceptable as even Ernest just comes off as a goofy, inept guy who has misplaced, but still good intentions. While his character may have still be the same by the end, I could not tell you as his mugging and vocal inflections get so ingratiating that I became angry whenever we left the more decent, or at least not as annoying characters, to get back to Ernest in some sort of get-up. In fact, I thought about Eddie Murphy a lot during this movie as well. I’m not sure that is relevant either but it still makes me angry.
Sadly, this doesn’t even work as a kid’s movie the way it used to in my day as my three kids who watched it with me could have cared less about anything going on other than debating if the old, bearded man was really Santa and laughing at the goofy fat guy in the warehouse. The story itself is pretty clever with Santa hounding this poor man to take over the gift distribution duties but yet still clichéd with the hot 80s runaway teenager having a change of heart away from her dastardly, Grinch-like gift stealing.
And I take issue with the overall title of the movie. How does Ernest save Christmas exactly? He drives a taxi, puts on wigs and false teeth, and kidnaps two elves while commandeering Santa’s sleigh. If all of that wasn’t enough, this movie should have been enough to put Ernest on Santa’s shit list.
I was shocked to learn (due to my extreme indifference toward him) that Ernest P. Worrell (Varney) was conceived as a local personality for television commecials which progressed into a TV series and no less than ten feature films. Having seen only a handful of those other movies, I cannot speak for the notion that Ernest is an almost self-aware, buffoonish caricature on purpose because his character merely comes off as a combination of annoying and “special.” Here we follow Ernest as he meets Santa Claus, a hot 80s teenage runaway, and some other stuff ensues as Santa attempts to woo a successor to take over the Santa throne.
The first few minutes are acceptable as even Ernest just comes off as a goofy, inept guy who has misplaced, but still good intentions. While his character may have still be the same by the end, I could not tell you as his mugging and vocal inflections get so ingratiating that I became angry whenever we left the more decent, or at least not as annoying characters, to get back to Ernest in some sort of get-up. In fact, I thought about Eddie Murphy a lot during this movie as well. I’m not sure that is relevant either but it still makes me angry.
Sadly, this doesn’t even work as a kid’s movie the way it used to in my day as my three kids who watched it with me could have cared less about anything going on other than debating if the old, bearded man was really Santa and laughing at the goofy fat guy in the warehouse. The story itself is pretty clever with Santa hounding this poor man to take over the gift distribution duties but yet still clichéd with the hot 80s runaway teenager having a change of heart away from her dastardly, Grinch-like gift stealing.
And I take issue with the overall title of the movie. How does Ernest save Christmas exactly? He drives a taxi, puts on wigs and false teeth, and kidnaps two elves while commandeering Santa’s sleigh. If all of that wasn’t enough, this movie should have been enough to put Ernest on Santa’s shit list.
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