An instant holiday favorite, Christmas Trade is not. Instead it lands firmly where one might guess based on the cover and cast, and concept, in mediocrity. That didn't stop me from enjoying it and even shedding a few tears in the heartfelt final scenes.
My appreciation for Denise Richards' is no secret. In my mind her acting style is sort of like Steven Seagal in the sense that she plays only one character for the most part and its not that great, but for some reason I love it. She's not the star of Christmas Trade, but she does plenty to enhance a movie that would be worse without her. She's a comforting and familiar consistency and frankly, bumps the dish from microwave to oven baked TV dinner status.
Next on to William Baldwin. Alongside Richards, I couldn't help having a yearning for some Dean Cain. And the sight of a Baldwin instantly reminds of the Steven brother in Sharks in Venice, but overall… Billy was, not so bad. What a weird role, trading places with an 11 year old. Okay, I get it. The Baldwins aren't exactly known for acting like grownups. Maybe somebody got a kick out of one of the brothers in that sort of role. I'll give it a good old fashioned "lol".
Then there's the kid, Michael Campion. I've never seen him in anything else but he looks like he'd fit right in as Will's sidekick in Stranger Things or in the young people half of It. He's okay, too, and slightly better because it's a more fun premise to think about him having dad, Baldwin, inside his head and going to middle school compared to Baldwin's character as an 11 year old trying to be a lawyer.
Overall, as a viewer we're stuck wondering why Baldwin is so stupid as to not just go full on into a relationship with Richards. It's not like they're characters just met, they've apparently been dating for a while. Otherwise, why does she hang around a doofus like him instead of moving on to someone with more common sense. I mean, I was willing to suspend my disbelief, but I did wonder.
Tom Arnold's character, "the Christmas factor", provides some of that weird holiday spirituality so prevalent in movies like this, but he also uses a creepy teddy bear that I was ready to see come to life like it's in Puppet Master. Eyes glow and everything. It would be interesting to see Mulder and Scully show up to investigate that bear.
In the end it obviously all works out. This is a great movie to have on while you're doing something else, like making cookies or wrapping some presents, easy watching early before Christmas when you're saving you're more favorite movies for closer to the big day. It doesn't try too hard and it doesn't deliver all that much. You won't miss anything if you've had a few too many glasses of egg nog, either.
