Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey
Starring Forest Whittaker, Madalen Mills and Keegan-Michael Key
Rated PG
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is a charming, vibrant family musical with some rough production and muddled morals.
Washed-up inventor Jeronicus Jangle (Forest Whitaker) must build something spectacular and connect with his estranged granddaughter Journey (Madalen Mills), or lose everything.
Whitaker anchors the film with an elegant, melancholic performance, and Jeronicus undergoes engaging development as he finally accepts Journey and regains his ingenuity and self-confidence. Mills conveys an energetic, assertive presence as Journey, and the film has stunning steampunk art direction and effective foreshadowing.
Jingle Jangle is full of hip-hop-infused, Hamilton-inspired musical numbers, with lively staging offset by sloppy camerawork and some poor dubbing. Buddy, a chirpy robot and Jeronicus’s latest creation, is more of a plot-device than a defined character, and Lisa Davina Philip leads an obnoxious subplot as Ms Johnston, a postwoman who aggressively courts Jeronicus.
Some of the film’s themes break down under any degree of scrutiny.
Diego (Ricky Martin), a talking matador doll and one of Jeronicus’s early creations, manipulates the villain Gustafson (Keegan-Michael Key) into betraying Jeronicus and stealing his inventions, but Diego is somewhat justified in working against Jeronicus, as the latter planned to essentially enslave the former as a mass-produced product. Buddy only functions when people believe it can work, which is somewhat disturbing given the clear consciousness it displays.
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey has a rich emotional core and beautiful art direction but underwhelming musical numbers and some off-putting themes, and is available for streaming on Netflix.
Seth Lukas Hynes
