Return to Sender
With the countdown to Christmas Kristi North (Ashley Scott - Holiday Road Trip) arrives at the mail office on a special assignment from corporate to respond to all the Santa letters which arrive at the depot. Depot manager Mr. Fuller (Lochlyn Munro - Falling for Christmas) suspects that Kristi is in fact a spy and orders postman Matt Sanders (A.J. Buckley - Doomsday Prophecy) to spy on her or else lose the job he needs as he looks after his orphaned niece Emily (Piper Mackenzie Harris). But things get complicated because not only does Kristi find herself replying to letters from Emily, which ask Santa to make her Uncle Matt happy, but Matt and Kristi start to fall for each other which can't be good with all these secrets going on.
I really ummed and arred before watching "We've Got Christmas Mail" because whilst the DVD cover made it look like a really nice Christmas rom-com but I had never heard of it before and something just made me suspicious. Unfortunately what I watched wasn't a really nice Christmas rom-com but an incredibly, and I hope intentionally, cheesy Christmas rom-com with over the top acting, corny humour and an obviousness which will be apparent to anyone over the age of nine. Basically what I am saying is that "We've Got Christmas Mail" ends up a Christmas rom-com for young teens, but one which features adults and a lot of obviousness which might end up being too cheesy for them.
So we have a few Christmas and non Christmas cliches going on in "We've Got Christmas Mail" with the most obvious one being that with Matt being told to spy on Kristi it leads to complications when they end up falling for each other and she discovers this. But there are plenty of other obvious things going on such as Kristi being Ms. North, only works two months of the year, loves hot chocolate and speaks numerous languages, do I really need to say more. It just feels like when the writers came up with the storyline to "We've Got Christmas Mail" they did so using the Christmas rom-com playbook and didn't bother to try and elaborate on any of the cliches they plucked from the book.
But in truth that is not all which is wrong with "We've Got Christmas Mail" as it is a corny movie which unfortunately borders on being painful. From Ashley Scott as Kristi being overly bubbly and smiley to Lochlyn Munro as Mr. Fuller being too annoying, it just borders on being more annoying than humorous. And then there is A.J. Buckley as Matt who spends the entire movie looking like he wished the whole thing was over, in fairness he smiles and tries to act the nice guy but with such a thin script it is incredibly hard to do.
What this all boils down to is that "We've Got Christmas Mail" may have a sweet Christmassy image on the DVD case but the actual movie is more corny than sweet to the point of bordering on being annoying. It might be entertaining for young teenagers but even then the obviousness of it all and the awkwardness of the performances might make them laugh for the wrong reasons.
Tags: Christmas Movies
