Movie Review - Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

This film feels like it's an adaptation of a Broadway musical. It's not an adaptation. It's an original musical by David E. Talbert. Talbert is a slightly older and way less successful version of Tyler Perry. Perry started out as a playwright who did independent stage work, catering specifically to African-American audiences, reflecting them in his productions. Talbert started out doing the same thing. He wasn't as prolific as Perry. Talbert didn't really explode in Hollywood, producing as much television or feature films. The films that Talbert has done haven't been huge hits in the box office. Talbert, however, has done something Perry usually doesn't do. Talbert has produced a musical featuring a predominantly black cast or a cast with mostly people of color. Predominantly black or predominantly people of color musicals are rare. Unfortunately, this one comes in the same year as Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton debuting on Disney+.

In terms of musicals with all or predominantly black casts, the most recent include Black Nativity (2013), Passing Strange (2009) and Dreamgirls (2006). Those films are better than this one, namely because those films have more fleshed-out stories and more fleshed-out character developments. Black Nativity is a particular point of comparison. Both this film and Black Nativity have a similar premise and both share an actor in Forest Whitaker. It felt as if Talbert saw Black Nativity and decided to steal some of the narrative, as well as Whitaker and set it in the past. Except, he watered a lot of it down, so that it's ultra kid-friendly, super basic and existing as a thin excuse to hang some songs by John Legend. Some of which are good, but not good enough to bolster this film. A couple of the songs are catchy and the performers sing and vocalize well, but it's all to service a barely existent plot and characters.

Forest Whitaker (Lee Daniels' The Butler and Panic Room) stars as Jeronicus, an inventor who focuses on robotics and similar mechanics. He mostly uses his talents to be a toy-maker. He creates the ultimate toy, a small robot that's not much bigger than a G.I. Joe, but it's a small robot that was designed to look like a Spanish bullfighter. He designs the robot to be a living doll that is totally sentient. That doll is called Don Juan, voiced by Ricky Martin. Jeronicus is depressed when his invention is stolen, along with the plans on how to build the invention.

He knows who stole Don Juan, but he isn't able to get Don Juan back. He also isn't able to rebuild the living doll. This affects his business. When his wife dies, he becomes even more depressed and distant from his daughter. When his daughter becomes an adult and has a daughter of her own, Jeronicus remains alone and consigned to run a pawn shop as a kind of African-American Scrooge. He does have a workshop in the attic where he is working on another robot. He has yet to finish it though.

Madalen Mills co-stars as Journey, the granddaughter of Jeronicus. Just like in Black Nativity, the grandchild is sent to their grandfather. Journey takes after her grandfather and likes to invent things. She's also an advocate for science. She's akin to the protagonist in A Wrinkle in Time (2018). However, when she does mathematical equations, it's visualized in a same way as the protagonist did in A Beautiful Mind (2001). However, she's having difficulty getting her grandfather to visualize science again as she now does. If he's like Scrooge when it comes to science and inventing, then she's Tiny Tim.

Things change when Journey goes into her grandfather's workshop in the attic and she discovers that he's built another robot that doesn't seem as lifelike as Don Juan. This new robot called Buddy 3000 looks like it was designed with a slight, steampunk aesthetic. It's akin to the titular robot in Wall-E (2008), except instead of tracked wheels, it has tiny legs, not that it needs those legs because Buddy 3000 can fly. It's also like a mechanical Tinker Bell from Peter Pan (1953) in that it can cause other people around him to fly. Buddy 3000 doesn't sprinkle fairy dust. It's actually never quite explained how or why it can fly or cause others to levitate off the ground. It's just waved away as magic and faith, which are odd things to invoke in a film that relies heavily on science.

Keegan-Michael Key (Dolemite Is My Name and Keanu) also co-stars as Gustafson, a former apprentice of Jeronicus who stole the Don Juan doll and lied saying that he invented it. Gustafson was able to use the stolen invention to achieve success, although it's not explained how because he never sold the doll nor made more. It's implied that he stole other things from other toy-makers, if not Jeronicus again, but it's never explained how and if he did rob other toy-makers, why eventually people couldn't build a case against him.

Gustafson could also be compared to Saul Rubinek's character from Star Trek: The Next Generation in the episode "The Most Toys." Except, there isn't any edge or real smarts to him. He's supposed to be a clever thief, but I don't get how he managed to flourish. Don Juan who is akin to the character of Iago in Disney's Aladdin (1992) is technically the brains who guides Gustafson in a lot of ways, but, it's still not clear what Don Juan said or did to get Gustafson to his fortune or status. It's not clear why he has to keep stealing. Usually, a person invents a great toy and they're set for life. Yet, this guy has to keep stealing, so Gustafson comes up with a plan to steal Buddy 3000 and claim it as his own.

That plan leads to the action in the back half of the film that I didn't love. What I did love was the musical number that Gustafson gets when Keegan-Michael Key performs "Magic Man G." It's like a Broadway show-tune in its sound and staging, but what's great is John Legend and his songwriters infuse black church music into it and Key's performance even invokes the moves of James Brown. Key's performance, as well as the performances of the other cast members in their musical numbers, is what sells this film. The story and character development are paper thin, so seeing Whitaker and actors like Anika Noni Rose who plays Jessica, the daughter of Jeronicus, sing is a major draw.

Finally, there are the visual effects. Phylicia Rashad (Creed and The Cosby Show) is the narrator and she gets through a lot of the exposition with the help of animation. The animation looks like stop-motion where they used actual puppets or toy figurines like Jeronicus might make. It was cute, but it wasn't enough to overcome the film's narrative deficiencies. I was hoping that this film would be an all-black version of Hugo (2011), but it didn't quite live up to that Martin Scorsese film for children. It wasn't even on the same level of something like Mary Poppins Returns (2018), even though it had a similar, high-flying ending as that film.

Rated PG for thematic elements and peril.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 4 mins.

Available on Netflix.