Did you feel like we needed another retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Well, I guess somebody did, because here we are. Spirited is a new take on A Christmas Carol with quite a few twists. First of all, it’s a musical. Second, it reimagines the whole ghost of Christmas future/past/present thing as a whole afterlife business. It kinda has a The Good Place vibe about it. These ghosts are tasked with finding one lost soul and making them “good” over the course of one Christmas Eve, just like they did with Ebenezer Scrooge. So, really, it’s less of a retelling and more of a reimagining/sequel. You get it? Good.
So anyway, Will Ferrell plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, and he’s on the verge of retiring, but before he retires once and for all, he wants to save one “unredeemable,” someone so bad, they’ve been marked as incapable of change. He sets his sights on Ryan Reynolds, whose name in this movie is… lemme check… Clint. Okay, I will probably continue to call these men Will and Ryan. When you’re as famous as Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, you’re always just gonna be Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds in every movie you’re in. What can I say? They’re not really known for, like, disappearing into their roles. Deal with it, I guess?
I feel like you’ve got the idea, so I’m just going to shut up and get to rating this movie. Let’s go!
Romance: 6/10. In this movie, you get two romances for the price of one, but neither is very developed. Will Ferrell’s love interest is Ryan Reynolds’ assistant, Octavia Spencer. Okay, sorry, her name in the movie is (checks) Kimberly. Kimberly is a nice character and everything, but look, Octavia and Will have zero chemistry with each other. Honestly, it’s hard for me to imagine Will Ferrell having chemistry with anyone in any movie, and I’ve seen him try in several movies. No offense to him, but I prefer him in roles like Mugatu in Zoolander where he just gets to be ridiculous and no one pretends he’s a viable love interest. Is that mean? He has so much money, y’all. I’m not worried about him.
Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds falls for the Ghost of Christmas Past, played by Sunita Mani. This could have been cute, but it all happened off-screen. They have a one night stand in the beginning of the movie (off-screen) and then at the end, somehow they’ve developed a full on relationship. We don’t see it happen. We’re just told they’re together now.
The focus of this movie isn’t a romance. It’s there to give our two leading men happy endings, but the friendship between Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds is the point here.
Morality: 10/10. You guys know A Christmas Carol is all about morality, and Spirited is no different. But this time, we’re looking at morality for the digital age. Ryan Reynold’s job is all about making people mad on the Internet to sell ads (or whatever). His whole life is about creating division and scandals. His lowest point is when he gets his niece involved in his schemes and convinces her to post a scandal about a classmate on Instagram. Thankfully, Ryan Reynolds learns the error of his ways and stops the scandal before it happens.
But it doesn’t end there! What I did enjoy about this movie is that Ryan Reynolds isn’t magically fixed just because he stops his niece for doing one bad thing. He is still required to do more to prove the he’s redeemed. And then he goes on to help other people. Nice work, Ryan Reynolds!
Music: 5/10. This is a musical, but let’s be real this is no Muppets Christmas Carol. These songs were not great and I found myself taking bathroom breaks or going to grab a snack or doing my laundry every time a song would start. This movie was kinda on the longer side, and we could have done without the songs. They just weren’t doing it for me. As someone who is normally a musical girlie, I’m not saying this lightly. This didn’t need to be a musical.
Please make it stop.
Christmas Spirit: 10/10. Not to be too literal about this, but this book is literally about Christmas spirits. Three of them! What more could you want? Also there are so many Christmas parties in this movie.
Warmth: 10/10. Finally, we’re back to Christmas movies with children in them! And children who can act!
This movie is all about family (both biological family and found family) and friendship. There are moments that will make you laugh. There are moments that will make you cry. For all of its faults and weird, awkward moments, Spirited has a lot of heart.
So how did we do?
41/50 = 82% B-. Yeah, this seems right. This movie was not bad. It was a cute premise, and I appreciated some of the little twists (which I did not reveal here because I didn’t want to spoil it for you). But the music was underwhelming and the romance was… weird? All in all, not a bad movie to watch around Christmastime, but not one I would add to the rotation every year. Just watched Scrooged and A Muppet Christmas Carol instead.