Former teen heart-throb turned religious fanatic film-maker Kirk Cameron’s latest film “Saving Christmas” is so bad, that the hilarious and insightful reviews from movie goers are actually better than the film itself.
Oh, Kirk Cameron, what has happened to you? Oh, Chelsea Noble, you’re awfully quiet, what must be going through your head these days? I have to ask.
Perhaps the best thing about Cameron’s new movie, Saving Christmas is the way it has effectively inspired viewers to tap into their higher, more artful natures in search of how best to describe this attempted assault on holiday movie audiences everywhere.
The former teen heartthrob’s latest cinematic fiasco tells the tale of Cameron’s brother-in-law who has lost the spirit of Christmas. Cameron–whose mannerisms and facial expressions seem to indicate all of his marbles have evaporated into outer space–attempts to convince his b.i.l. named “Christian,” (?) that all of the materialism associated with the holiday is, in fact, all good and well because it is how we honor Jesus.
A thinking individual might be confused as to how celebrating materialism puts the “Christ” back into Christmas when Jesus despised materialism. No matter, logic is a foreigner here. Cameron goes on to sound the “War on Christmas” dog whistle brought on by those who have the audacity to wish you “Happy Holidays.” Then the whole thing wraps up with a hip-hop dance off.
Naturally, the project garnered some pretty harsh criticism on Rotten Tomatoes. This prompted the “good christian” Cameron to recruit his Facebook fans to saturate the site with fake, positive reviews in an effort to dilute the authentic, negative ones.
Regardless, this unfortunate series of events seems to have inspired some enlightened and sober commentary about Christmas:
“Prejudiced, phony, self-righteous ‘Christians’ like Kirk Cameron are what Christmas–and Christianity– need saving from.” –Matthew A
The less serious reviews were legitimately hilarious in their own right, worth at least an hours worth of quality entertainment far superior to the movie that inspired them. There were at least two viewers who claimed the film had given them a terminal illness while another thanked Cameron for pushing them to finally take the plunge into atheism and more:
“This movie turned me from bisexual to full lesbian.” –Ashlee V
So in some odd, roundabout way, it would seem as though Cameron has, in spite of himself, actually spread some small semblance of holiday cheer in the world. Just not in the way he was hoping.
As it is written in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “Let light shine out of darkness.”
Here’s an assortment of the highlights. From the thought-provoking to the hilarious:
Look, Kirk. Christmas isn’t going anywhere. You can go outside and say ‘Merry Christmas.’ You aren’t going to get assaulted. You most certainly aren’t going to get arrested. Your government will not kick down the door at 3 AM. People have opinions, though. Not everyone is going to agree with you. I agree with the many who say that this movie is a wasted effort. Please, rethink filmmaking. Your reputation is in the trash. –Dakota O
This movie is so bizarre. Who did Cameron make this for? It’s not to put Christ back in Christmas for non-believers, but it’s somehow addressed to Christians who don’t enjoy Santa Claus? Well, you will after you see him beat the crap out of some dude. This thing is so poorly made, so unfunny, and even if the history is interesting (although it’s probably not accurate), there’s nothing here that will win over anyone. Ridiculous. –Nathan M
Simply HORRIBLE! Could not sit through all of the crap. Tried to get a refund, but no luck. Don’t waste your money, give your $10 + the cost of popcorn to a homeless family, do something ACTUALLY Christian! –Mark S
The thing that so impressed me about this movie was the closing credits. They were manna from Heaven after this soul-sucking ordeal. Well, I was impressed by the closing credits, and how the teams of EMTs shouting ‘CLEAR!’ as they tried to revive several audience members who’d tried to end their own lives rather than sit through this movie, sounded like a sort of round-robin chorus of abandoned hope. The star, Kirk Cameron, is an evangelical Christian who not only believes in eternal salvation, he tries to sap the will to live in this world from his audience through his demonically bad acting. This is a can’t-miss motion picture if you’ve recently lost the power of sight and want to stop yourself from longing for visual entertainment. –Gina C
I get that he wants to bring the world to Christ. His intentions are honorable because at the end of the day he is really just trying to ‘save us’. That being said his energy and efforts would be better put towards sitting quietly in the basement of an abandoned house with no lights on for the next fifty years. This makes a vasectomy seem entertaining. –Roy W
I would rather a video of a stranger passing a tapeworm while picking lice nits out of my own chest hair than watch this drivel. They should have named this movie ‘Hurting Christ.’ –Chris B
Jesus preached love, tolerance and non-violence. But this movie is so bad it would make Jesus want to bitch slap Kirk Cameron. –Lori G
In his usual intellectual dishonesty, Cameron demonstrates that he lacks harboring an entry level knowledge base of his own book and platform. Murica. –Logic R
Okay, this was wretched. It’s not just mostly incorrect, it’s incorrect stupidly. I’m sure I lost brain cells that will never recover. –David N
Christmas, despite the claim that there’s a war on it, is doing just fine. You have a far better chance of learning the origins of Christmas and it’s many traditions from a scholarly, educational source that is unbiased than from this jejune film. If the imaginary ‘War on Christmas’ needed a film to represent it Kirk’s film would be the winner.
Now I’m going to tear into the hyperbole of the movie info section with common sense for fun.
Terms like ‘Seasons Greetings’ and ‘Happy Holidays’ aren’t political correctness and they aren’t replacing anything permanently. They’re just phrases people choose to use. Some people (even non-Christians) celebrate Christmas, some celebrate another holiday, and others do nothing. To be quite frank who cares what you say to each other. If someone says anything other than ‘Merry Christmas’ to you just say ‘thanks, you too’ like any decent human being would do. It’s nothing to get your pants in a twist over.
As for the ‘court ordered removal of public nativity scenes,’ there’s a reason behind that and it’s not that a group hates Christmas or Christianity. Standalone religious holiday decorations, like a nativity scene, are a violation of the Establishment Clause as the Supreme Court has decided. A nativity scene on a government property can be seen as an endorsement of Christianity which is a no-no. However a nativity scene with other decorations, like Santa, reindeer, Christmas trees, etc., are okay on public property.
The ‘true’ meaning of Christmas can be whatever you want it to be. Celebrate it the way you want. For many non-religious and non-Christians it’s about spending time with family and friends. There is no attempt to attack or change what people want Christmas to be about. The War on Christmas is an unnecessary controversy that never needed to exist much like Saving Christmas.
This film felt like a chore to watch and seemed like it tried too hard to be hilarious. Saving Christmas only seems to exist to seem relevant and to foist the idea that Christianity and Christmas are under attack, like Fox News does every year, back into the minds of the gullible public. See another film or save your money. Heck, skip seeing a movie and doing something fun together with your family. –Slush Kitty
I love Christmas movies. They are one of my all time favorite indulgences. It’s not a rational or particularly tasteful pleasure of mine, but any movie set at Christmas time is going on my ‘must watch’ list, and many of those then get shuffled to my “must re-watch” list, as long as they capture SOMETHING about the season I love.
If you’d asked me yesterday if there was ANY Christmas movie so badly cast, directed and presented that it could actually diminish my enjoyment of it, I would have said no, and meant it. I like some pretty awful Christmas movies.
And then came this one.
I kind of want to defend my dislike of it. Because I love Christmas movies, so I should have loved this. I have almost NO standards when it comes to Christmas movies, I can’t stress that enough. The old Scrooge-story redone to death? Some whimsical tale about a wide-eyed child begging Santa for a family? Animatronic reindeer? Basically any and every Christmas cliche in the book? That is my CATNIP. I should have loved this movie.
I guess the problem is, it’s not actually a Christmas movie. It’s a self-justifying talking-piece that’s stretched out over a length of time too great to actually support the ‘story’ it’s meant to tell. It wasn’t a movie so much as a weird, patched-together collection of overused tropes, stilted dialogue and quasi-historical flashbacks that lasted much longer than it should have.
I am giving this movie half a star because that house was decorated to the nines, and I love over-the-top holiday set pieces. The rest of this movie isn’t even worth the two dollars Wal Mart will quickly mark it down to in order to move the stock. –Rissa
UPDATE, Friday 05DEC14: So it looks like the bad news for Kirk Cameron and his new movie Saving Christmas just keeps coming. And all despite his desperate attempts to get his fans to save the day. The new film now not only has a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it has also just taken the title of absolute worst movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). It looks like Cameron won’t be saving Christmas after all….
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