Last year, my daughter made me watch a few of the past seasons of The Amazing Race. I think this prepared me to watch this year’s Hallmark movie, Jingle Bell Run. Which is basically Christmas-themed Amazing Race.

When all of Avery’s (Ashley Williams) family has other plans for Christmas, her sister signs her up for The Great Holiday Dash, a Christmas-themed race across the United States to win a million dollars. She gets paired with Wes (Andrew W. Walker), a recently retired professional hockey player trying to figure out what to do next in life. With her puzzle-solving skills and his physical prowess, the duo is destined to win the big prize.

Well, Jingle Bell Run may make the top 10 list this year. (Granted, we are still in November and there are a LOT of movies to go.) I thought that the premise was fresh and new, Williams and Walker had pretty good chemistry together, and I enjoyed how they featured a couple of the rival teams. The movie may have been a little bit better if they played up the rivalry between Wes and currently popular hockey player Nash (Jamall Johnson) but it is possible that would have made the movie too stuffy. Without that rivalry, we were given room to let the romance between Avery and Wed flourish. I would have just liked to see at least a little more between the two hockey players. As it was, Wes was jealous that Nash is a younger player and Nash barely knows who Wes is.

Overall, I did think the movie was fun. While I don’t think I would watch it again, it is definitely a contender on the best movie list of this year.

Rating: Maybe add few more stops around the United States

I keep forgetting that Hallmark throws all of their military-themed Christmas movies on their Movies & Mysteries channel. While I don’t have a problem with characters being in the military or characters having family members in the military, these movies feel like they are fetishizing the military. It kinda makes my skin crawl. And, yes, that includes Christmas Bedtime Stories.

Danielle’s (Erin Cahill) Marine husband goes missing during a mission gone bad. His is the only body they did not find in the wreckage. Three years later, Danielle’s daughter, Audry (Alice Comer), starts asking about her father. As Danielle tells her bedtime stories about Colby (Charlie Weber), Danielle mysterious things occur that happen to be related to each story. Despite trying to move on with her new fiancé, Pierce (Steve Lund), Danielle can’t shake the feeling that Colby may not actually be dead.

Uggghhh. There are so many things I hate about this movie. Why did Audry not only wait three years to ask about her father but also wait until the literal day her mother gets engaged to another man? A man that both of them supposedly like a lot. Why does Danielle agree to marry Pierce anyway? She never seems to enjoy his company, much less love him. Why do all of the mysterious things keep happening? If this isn’t Colby’s ghost giving some sort of “remember me!” events, why would the universe be like “Yep, Colby’s alive. That is why this Christmas tree salesguy called his trees the same exact phrase Colby did! And yep, all bells everywhere now have red ribbons because Colby gave you one of those. Oh, and here’s a freak snowstorm because there was a snowstorm when you gave birth to your kid.” It’s all just so dumb.

I always feel bad giving negative reviews to movies that feature military members. It makes me sound like I hate the military and I don’t. What I hate are movies that go out of the way to make the military look like some angelic force that can do no wrong. If you don’t think that is what is happening here, wait until the end of the movie and tell me that final scene doesn’t look like some sort of holy ghost. The whole scene even has that hazy dreamlike filter on it. It drives me crazy. Sure, we can have Colby miraculously be the only survivor of a devastating disaster and show back up three years later. But don’t make it look like he’s been living it up at a tropical resort drinking margaritas the whole time. That’s messed up.

In my opinion, I don’t think you should watch Christmas Bedtime Stories. There isn’t anything good here. The acting is terrible, poor Pierce who does nothing wrong gets screwed over in every single scene, and the ending is simply unbelievable. I can suspend disbelief for most things. Not for that. I really hope that a better military-themed Christmas movie comes out later this year. I don’t think we’ve had a semi-decent one since 2020.