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Shelf Beauties |
Unaccompanied Minors Stop the
madness! Do we really need another Christmas movie after suffering
through Deck
The Halls and The Santa Clause 3? The
only difference between those movies and this one is that you dreaded
taking
your 5-year old to The Santa Clause 3, but you will
dread taking your 10-year
old to see Unaccompanied
Minors. Maybe
Unaccompanied
Minors are the only ones who should go see this movie. Let them rip up the
theater, while Mom and
Dad see something good. Dyllan
Christopher stars as Spencer – a tween boy traveling on
Christmas Eve with his
younger sister, Katherine (Dominique Saldana), to their
father’s home in The
kids’
supervisor, Zach (Wilmer Valderrama, who wins this year’s I
Must Cash In While
I Can award), is a nice guy, but overwhelmed by the out of control
demon
children feeling cooped up by the four concrete walls, and acting out
like they
have been eating candy, chocolate milk and soda for two weeks straight
(which
is my Christmas time diet, but I can handle the caffeine better than
they
can). Sick of the
mayhem, Spencer and
four other children – Charlie (Tyler James Williams), Beef
(Brett Kelley),
Grace (Gina Mantegna) and Donna (Quinn Shephard) – decide to
break out of the
insane asylum and enjoy all the more civilized offerings at their
disposal in
the airport. However,
Spencer soon
realizes he must get back to his younger sister and try to make this
stranded
Christmas a special one, when it becomes apparent they will not be
flying out
until long after Santa has come and gone.
Can he find a
way to make this Christmas special for the little girl far away from
Mom, Dad
and Santa? Will the
five AWOL children
be able to get back together with the others? Unaccompanied
Minors is full of recognizable television stars, and even
more recognizable,
retread antics. Director
Paul Feig as
well as writers Jacob Meszaros and Mya Stark just don’t seem
to be trying. They
fill the movie with standard,
unspectacular, silly, forced slapstick comedy that will entertain the
youngest
in the audience, but might make their parents groan after the 10th
incidence of slapstick shtick. None
of
the dialogue is anything to remember (which might be why Feig is forced
to put
these kids through a CIA torture training video-style set of slapstick
scenes),
especially as the children all deal with the traditional tween
problems, and
start to come off a bit like The
Breakfast Club with less verbal skill to
express themselves. Worse than all
of that, Meszaros and Stark make two huge mistakes.
First, the children are supposed to be our
heroes, but each one does something wrong that they should be punished
for,
therefore, the whole theme of the movie that one very grumpy old man
who works
for the airline, Oliver Porter (Lewis Black), is unjustly coming down
hard on
them because he is evil and sadistic is a forced, phony plot twist. I’m sure
supporters will argue that the
punishment is too severe, and even I am swayed by that reasoning,
however,
couldn’t we come up with a conflict that doesn’t
inspire kids who see the movie
to feel they can break the rules (and a few laws) when they want to? Second, Unaccompanied
Minors should end at
least 20 minutes earlier when it resolves
our main plot. But
NOOOOOOOO! Feig and
company try to milk this movie for
all of the phony tears they can generate as the last part of the movie
brings
out the sappy plot twists that appear out of nowhere in an attempt to
make the
movie emotional. No
hints are dropped
about the biggest surprise (which I won’t reveal here), which
is plopped into
the story without any warnings or hints that a better writer or
director might
put in. After saying all
of that, I have a feeling Unaccompanied
Minors plays better to kids
12-years
old and younger, but still has some potty humor better saved for a
National
Lampoon movie. Even
the coldest, hardest
of hearts will find something to laugh at, and maybe feel a bit of
emotion
during what should have been the climax. 3 Waffles (Out of 4) If you have been
through puberty: Unaccompanied Minors is rated PG for mild rude humor and language
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