Describe a plot badly: A couple harasses an old man to work for them for free on Christmas Eve. I mean, that is the basic gist of Miracle in Motor City.

Amber (Tia Mowry-Hardrict) has taken over planning her church’s Christmas pageant. In order to make the pageant special, she promises that Smokey Robinson (himself) will perform. Except that Smokey doesn’t know about it. Amber teams up with her ex-boyfriend, Eddie (Mark Taylor), to convince Smokey to appear.

There are two sides to this movie: The creepy “Let’s call everyone who has ever known Smokey Robinson to get them to get him to come to the pageant.” Then there is the sweeter “Amber takes care of a foster child, Lily (Markeda McKay).” I really wish they focused more on the foster child situation than the Smokey Robinson stalking.

The writers could have done so much more with this story. Make the main story Lily coming to live with Amber and how Amber’s life has changed since she’s taken on caring for a child. Show Amber teaching Lily how to love Motown music as much as she does. Then, if you really need to have Smokey Robinson in your movie, have Smokey find out about this orphan girl learning how to love Motown so he shows up at the Christmas pageant and surprises everyone with his rendition of “Silent Night.” First, it’s a more intriguing story and the audience learns a bit about Motown. Second, it would put the “Miracle” in Miracle in Motor City. Because the story as it is has no miracles.

I don’t think this movie is worth watching. Even if you are a Smokey Robinson superfan, he’s not in the movie all that much. The best part of the movie really is Markeda McKay but I’m not sure she’s enough of a reason to sit through this whole thing.

I’m not sure if I don’t know how towns get their official Christmas trees or if this movie doesn’t know how it happens. Why not both?

Erin (Rochelle Aytes) works at the office of the mayor of Brooklyn, Colorado. When the town’s official Christmas tree plans fall through, Erin finds the perfect tree on the property of a local firefighter, Kevin (Mark Taylor). He doesn’t want to give his tree to the town. So it’s up to Erin to convince him otherwise.

There are so many weird things in this movie. Erin’s father (Peter Bryant) is the mayor of the town, as was his father before him. He keeps saying that it’s Erin’s destiny to be the next mayor…but that’s not how it works. Mayors are elected officials. She doesn’t get to inherit it.

Then there’s this little tidbit they threw in about her professional life. She has a teaching degree. After she graduated, she got a teaching job in Denver. But then her dad offered her a job in the mayor’s office so she decided to give up the Denver job and stay in Brooklyn. WHY. If you didn’t like teaching, why did you finish out the degree? You should have switched majors. If you liked teaching, why did you give up a job? YOU GOT A TEACHING JOB.

I will give props to Hallmark for having people of color as the main characters. There is also a gay couple as side characters. Oh, and let’s not forget the single father adopting an “older” child. (I think they said she was 5 when he adopted her. We’re not talking teenager-older but not-baby-older.) Hallmark isn’t usually known for its diversity. This is a step in the right direction.

Is it a good movie? Not really. Erin kept talking about how Kevin’s house is in the former town square and she kept harassing him to cut down his tree. Why wouldn’t she ask if they could trim the tree where it stood and have the whole event there? Why talk about how historical the site was if only to use that bit of information as the “last minute savior” moment?

Should you watch it? Eh, if you want to. It’s fairly boring. But I would like Hallmark to have more diversity in their movies. I think that if this doesn’t get good ratings, Hallmark will decided that consumers don’t want to see people of color in lead roles. We do. We just want to see them in GOOD roles.