Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey - At last, a yuletide movie that's not pure humbug!
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B-plus
After a decline in popularity over the past few decades, the Christmas movie, at least on the small screen, is back in a big way.
The Hallmark Channel alone is unveiling 40 (yes, 40) new Christmas movies this year, and, on Netflix, at least 60 holiday movies are available.
One of these is Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, and it’s a milestone: A child-friendly holiday musical fantasy with a predominantly Black cast, led by Forest Whitaker and Keegan-Michael Key, in a story of a young girl’s save-the-day empowerment.
Journey (Madalen Mills) meets her toy-inventor grandfather Jeronicus (Forest Whitaker).
Originally conceived for the stage by playwright and occasional screenwriter David E. Talbert, Jingle Jangle is overstuffed with design and musical ideas: There’s a steam-punk esthetic blended with CGI visuals, mass dance numbers (choreographed by Ashley Wallen of The Greatest Showman fame) and a modern score includes songs by John Legend and Bruno Mars-collaborator Philip Lawrence, ranging from gospel to pop ballads to Broadway show-tunes.
Set in a vaguely Victorian city in England, this English-American production tips its top hat to a Mary Poppins or Willy Wonka world with an updated onscreen inclusiveness, not just in casting but in elements of African-American esthetics in design and dance moves. In the opening scene, a young brother and sister (Ria Calvin, Kenyah Sandy) ask their grandmother (Phylicia Rashad) to the tell them a Christmas story. But Grandma suggests “a new story” which rises out of her opened pop-up book.
In the extended prologue, we meet children’s toymaker Jeronicus Jangle (initially played by Justin Cornwell), who operates a toy store called Jangles and Things, with his wife and baby daughter. But Jeronicus falls on hard times after his resentful apprentice, Gustafson (Miles Barrow), absconds with Jeronicus’s book of blueprints for new toys and his latest invention (a walking-talking vain matador doll, Don Diego, voiced by Ricky Martin).
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
Soon after, Jeronicus falls on miserable times: His spirit of invention fails, his wife dies, and the toymaker’s once-thriving business becomes a debt-ridden, dusty pawn shop.
The proper story begins 30 years later, when Jangle (now played by a gloomy Forest Whitaker) is reunited with his brilliant 10-year-old granddaughter, Journey (newcomer Madalen Mills).
When grandfather proves unmoved by her energy, she joins forces with Jeronicus’s current apprentice, the nerdy adolescent Edison (Kieron L. Dyer), determined to help her grandfather get his inventing mojo back. Eventually, it works; Jeronicus even begins noticing the local post-woman, Ms. Johnston (Lisa Davina Phillip) who has been avidly stalking him.
More importantly, he begins to envision new ideas again.
While race is never mentioned in Jingle Jangle, the celebration of girl power is upfront (The Square Root of Impossible is Me is Journey’s signature song). She leads the way in infiltrating a warehouse owned by former apprentice Gustafson to retrieve some of Jeronicus’s inventions.
Gustaffson is now played by an amusingly over-the-top Keegan-Michael Key as a toy tycoon, and he’s a revelation as a slick showman. Whitaker, strait-jacketed in a one-dimensional role, proves to be a decent singer and, as much as he can, gives the film a center of gravity.
Overall, Jingle Jangle has a thrift shop style of irrepressible clutter, including some ideas that are blatantly derivative (Don Diego copies Antonio Banderas’ Puss in Boots. Another toy, the Buddy 3000, lifts from Pixar’s Wall-E.) More care for pacing and character development, and less focus on moment-by-moment wow-factor, would have made a less strenuous film. Still, the sheer exuberance and skill of the visual design and performances are uplifting.
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey. Directed and written by David E Talbert. Starring: Forest Whitaker, Keegan-Michael Key, Madalen Mills. Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey begins streaming on Netflix on Friday, Nov. 13.