"Now that it’s officially December, the Christmas spirit of capitalism is in full swing. Stores are colorfully decorated, trees are being bought and put up, and Christmas movies are being spit out by all the streaming platforms and more." -- Alex Stullman, 7th Grade
One of these is Spirited, an Apple+ original musical starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. A far cry from Elf, Spirited had gotten many mixed reviews since its release well before even Thanksgiving on November 11th.
Maya Phillips, from the New York Times, refers to this new musical adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” as “Expensive and attempts to do everything at once, but it’s more shine than substance — and about as funny as the market price of a new iPhone.” …Oof. This sort of verbal slaughter continues for pretty much the entirety of Phillip’s article, and though, yes, the film had its faults, I wouldn’t describe it as harshly as, “A disjointed movie musical with all the superficial trappings of a Broadway flop.”
As mentioned before, Spirited is one of many, many “Christmas Carol” adaptations, but now with a modern twist. It follows Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds), a businessman specializing in causing chaos in the media, who is chosen, much like Scrooge, by the ghosts of Christmas Past (Sunita Mani), Present (Will Ferrell), and Future (Loren Woods, voiced by Tracy Morgan) to become a better, more positive force for humanity. However, Briggs sort of flips the switch on the whole operation, going into Present’s life (or death) with him on and off over the course of the film and generally just being a pain in the ass.
Maya Phillips, from the New York Times, refers to this new musical adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” as “Expensive and attempts to do everything at once, but it’s more shine than substance — and about as funny as the market price of a new iPhone.” …Oof. This sort of verbal slaughter continues for pretty much the entirety of Phillip’s article, and though, yes, the film had its faults, I wouldn’t describe it as harshly as, “A disjointed movie musical with all the superficial trappings of a Broadway flop.”
As mentioned before, Spirited is one of many, many “Christmas Carol” adaptations, but now with a modern twist. It follows Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds), a businessman specializing in causing chaos in the media, who is chosen, much like Scrooge, by the ghosts of Christmas Past (Sunita Mani), Present (Will Ferrell), and Future (Loren Woods, voiced by Tracy Morgan) to become a better, more positive force for humanity. However, Briggs sort of flips the switch on the whole operation, going into Present’s life (or death) with him on and off over the course of the film and generally just being a pain in the ass.
And yes, it is a musical. Whether that makes the movie more or less appealing to you, I wouldn’t know. But as someone who generally enjoys musical movies, (and has been witness to many poorly-made ones) I thought the song and dance of this was overall well-executed, even though the two leads are not well known for either their singing or their dancing. The songs are by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen) and though they’re not as catchy as Dear Evan Hansen, I can still confidently say that this soundtrack is not bad. The dancing and choreography is absolutely amazing. The background dancers do a great job at dancing and making the stars of the show, famously not dancers, look better than they are.
It should be noted that Octavia Spencer, who plays Kimberly, Briggs’s hardworking and morally conflicted assistant, can sing! I mean, she’s no Taylor Swift, but as someone who went into it not even thinking she would be singing, she blew me away. Also let it be noted that Patrick Page, Present’s weary boss, was annoyingly not given much time to sing. Page stars as Hades in the new-ish Broadway hit of Hadestown, with chillingly deep bass vocals and acting that at some point should bring tears to your eyes. (In Hadestown—I doubt anyone cried watching Spirited.)
Besides those two, Reynolds and Ferrell basically play alternate versions of past characters. The charismatic Clint Briggs is basically a less-violent version of Deadpool, and the well-meaning Ghost of Christmas Present is eerily close to the famous Buddy in the holiday classic of Elf. Just saying.
All in all, I really enjoyed Spirited, and even with its faults, I definitely don’t think it’s another one of ye ole Holiday Films that make me want to scream.