Movie Review: Holiday in Handcuffs [SPOILERS]

Image found at imdb.com

As all of you should know from last December's blog posts (and a couple from this year), one of my favorite holiday traditions is watching Christmas movies. I usually stick to my favorites, like The Holiday, The Family Man, and Love Actually (duh). But this year, I've been trying to broaden my horizons and watch some other holidays films. Netflix has quite a list, and as I was browsing, I found Holiday in Handcuffs.

I knew it would be a disaster from the start. Not like plain awful (like Happy Christmas), but totally silly and unrealistic. The whole idea of the movie is that Trudie (played by Melissa Joan Hart) is a failure at life: no further education, no full-time job, and now no boyfriend (after he dumps her soon into the movie). So what does she decide to do to turn her life around? KIDNAP a man to impress her parents. Whaaaa? So the whole thing is preposterous.

But at least she chose wisely. She happens to snag David (played by Mario Lopez), who's rich, funny, well-dressed, and, oh yeah, super hot. She drags him up to some cabin in the middle of nowhere to spend Christmas with her family. He puts up a fight at first, but then he's getting along with her parents and siblings, they like him too, and before you know it, after a few days, these two are falling in love (even though she's a nut job and he's a complete stranger). 

So the plot is over-the-top and unbelievable, but it's the kind of  ABC Family Christmas movie you expect, with the dumb jokes and the happy, romantic ending. It was exactly how I thought it would be. If you know what you're getting yourself into (which now you do), it's not so bad.

Besides, you get to see Lopez shirtless with a towel wrapped around his waist. Even though he will always be Slater in Saved by the Bell, he's still nice to look at.

Image found at http://goo.gl/ZKXFqD

Image found at http://goo.gl/4r7wTv

And can I just comment that Hart still looks like she's in the 90's? It's like this: She's not a grown-up version of herself, but a grown-up version of Clarissa or Sabrina. She's still the same character after all these years (although I will admit this movie came out in 2007, which is when I graduated from high school...)! Even her recent Walmart commercials are corny! I just feel bad that she's been typecast for so long. But I will say, I do actually like the movie Drive Me Crazy. Bring on the frogs...