"It's Christmas Eve and a huge blizzard has just shut down the airport, threatening to ruin holiday plans for all stranded travelers. Snowed in en route to their father's house, two "Unaccompanied Minors"--dubbed UMs--Spencer (Dyllan Christopher) and his little sister, Katherine (Dominique Saldana), are ushered to the airport's Unaccompanied Minors Room, a holding cell for dozens of stranded, parent-free kids from all over the country. Caught in the crossfire of projectile cupcakes and juice boxes and desperate to escape, Spencer makes a run for freedom along with four other UMs, who couldn't be more different if they tried: spoiled rich girl Grace (Gina Mantegna), trailer-park tomboy Donna (Quinn Shephard), academic overachiever Charlie (Tyler James Williams) and comic-book geek Timothy Wellington a.k.a. "Beef" (Brett Kelly). With the airport's peevish Passenger Relations Manager Oliver Porter (Lewis Black), his lackey assistant Zach Van Bourke (Wilmer Valderrama) and every airport security guard hot on their trails, this group of UMs from cliques that don't mix learn to ditch their differences and help each other flee the clutches of airport authority. Meanwhile, Katherine and the other UMs have been herded to a nearby hotel to wait out the storm. Determined to reunite with his little sister and fulfill her unspoiled vision of Santa Claus arriving on Christmas morning, Spencer enlists the help of his UM posse. Working together as an unlikely family of their own, they outwit and outrun Oliver and his crew. Plummeting through baggage chutes, rummaging around unclaimed luggage and canoeing down a snow-covered hill, they turn Christmas at the airport into holiday pandemonium and, along the way, prove that the holidays aren't about where youare, but who you're with." (Description swiped from Amazon.)
Despite some annoying acting by one of the characters, this movie had a few good laughs interspersed throughout, mostly involving a "green" dad who has to compromise his environmental standards in order to get to his children. We enjoyed a couple of cameos of Office actors, and all in all it had a good message.
I've decided to adopt a grading scale to rate those children's/family movies that come in all different shapes and sizes: Here are the grades with examples of movies that fit the description:
A-Excellent, riveting, inspiring, etc. (Wallace and Grommit:Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Shrek)
B-Pretty good--munching on snacks made up for anything it lacked. (Game Plan, Evan Almighty)
C-Worthy effort, but resorted to fake potty breaks to stay awake and sneak in a few pages of reading. (The Shaggy Dog, Ice Princess)
D-Spaced out during 73.56% of the movie. (Santa Clause III, Son of the Mask)
F-I would rather be scrubbing the toilet with a toothbrush. (Alvin and the Chipmunks, Land Before Time 1-100)
The verdict for Unaccompanied Minors: B-
3 comments:
I guess a B- is pretty good, but I honestly can't see myself renting it any time soon. I think it would drive Joseph crazy. It sounds like something my dad and the kids would probably enjoy, though. As for the rating system, did you categorize those paranthetical movies? Because I have a problem with a few of them. For example, I would give The Shaggy Dog, Santa Clause III, and Land Before Time B's. And I've seen The Shaggy Dog about 350 times (because of my kids)!
Lara,
Of course those are just my opinions! I almost gave Santa Clause III an F, so I feel I was being pretty generous. In general I have a really hard time watching kid's movies, they have to be really good to capture my attention, or I feel like I'm really wasting my time. I truly would rather clean the toilet than watch Land Before Time.
"If we hold on to-ge-ther. I know our dreams will ne-ver di-i-i-i-e..."
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