Spoilers for 8-Bit Christmas ahead.
Welcome to the first "real" entry of lexdoes' thoughts.
It's Christmas time, and that means you get to sit down with
your family and watch some
holiday movies. Well, last year, my parents had us watch this movie called
"8-Bit Christmas".
It's the story of a boy named Jake Doyle, who, during the
Christmas of the late 1980s, wants
nothing but a Nintendo Entertainment System. His parents don't want to get him
one
due to his parents thinking it'll turn his brain into mush. Hilarity ensues...
...but disappointment entails.
8-Bit Christmas is a waste of you and your family's time for several reasons,
but first I need
to make some concessions. The script, acting, camera work, and special effects
are all
fine, great, even. I freaking love Steve Zahn, so all of his scenes are big
highlights at least
for me.
The weak spot and ruining factor of 8-Bit Christmas is the
story. The framing device is
adult Jake telling his daughter, who wants nothing but a smartphone for
Christmas,
about when he was in a similar position with the Nintendo. The twist is that
Jake lies
and the conversation would have lasted a whole 20 seconds if he didn't.
Because you see, Jake never gets his Nintendo. The Nintendo he shows his
daughter
at the beginning was obtained at a later date. He gets extremely close to
getting it,
but it gets crushed by the school bus after he drops it after slipping on some
ice. It's
your standard "giving is better than getting" affair. Except the other movies
with that moral
don't lie to you whatsoever.
Imagine if Gift of the Magi was titled "Jim Gets a Watch Chain
for Christmas and
Uses It". When you first read it, you have an expectation set that we will
get to see Jim
use the watch chain, since that's on the cover of the book. Imagine how upset
you would be
when you find out the book lied to you.
That's exactly what 8-Bit Christmas does. 8-Bit Christmas sets
up an expectation, and
lies to you. The whole 97 minute run time basically amounts to "save up your
allowance,
kid, and you can get the iPhone you wanted".
The misery, regrettably, does not end at the movie's lies. The movie's ableist
as well. I'm
suspected to have something called ADHD. For me, that basically means that I
have
trouble focusing on things, but for other people, that could mean that they
could have
frequent tantrums.
Well, one of the kids in the movie is this rich boy who has a
bunch of tantrums all of
the time. In fact, it was one of his tantrums that triggered the conflict, where
he knocked
over the TV in rage and... sigh... severely injures his dog, which the
audience is initially led to
believe had died. And yes, this is illustrated on-screen. My parents had this
dog named
Penny who was euthanized almost one month before this movie came out.
This is all played out as a joke, by the way.
We got a bit sidetracked... anyways, the rich kid. During a
meeting with the parents, the rich
kid's mom says something along the lines of "Video games have ruined our
perfect boy, who
coincidentally was diagnosed with attention deficit... something, anyways-".
Again, played
out as a joke. Kevin Jakubowski, the screenwriter, if you are somehow reading
this...
that joke was not funny.
You are acting like it's funny and totally okay to make jokes
against ADHD, when in reality
you are spreading the false stigma that all ADHD kids are awful because "they're
sore losers".
I know for certain that someone's going to e-mail me about this and say "But,
Lex, it's just
a joke!". And to that, I say: Is it really a joke if it makes the people you're
targeting frown
instead of laugh?
Another small critique before I close this review: nobody cries during this
movie, at least
none of the main characters. The most we get is the bully mockingly going "WAA!
WAA!
WAA!" at Jake. During the aforementioned Nintendo crushing sequence, nobody's
crying,
even though your Nintendo getting crushed after planning out exactly how you're
going to
get one for so long would be a valid reason to cry. But nope, the kid just sits
there
disappointed, likely the same face you would have if you finished the movie.
In short, this movie lies to you and makes fun of kids with ADHD. Don't watch it
unless
you either enjoy feeling disappointed, or you're Steve Zahn's biggest fan.
Anyways, that's all for now. See you next time!
(c)2022 lexdoes
