Movie Review - Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

NOTE: With this review, I'm bringing this Christmas Movie a Day thing to a close for this year (Instead of 31 movies, it'll be the 12 Movies of Christmas, I guess). I'd really like to keep my New Year's resolution to have read a book a week this year and, with four more to go at this point, that won't happen if I continue this little Christmas thing. So, while I'm sure I'll be watching some Christmas movies in the upcoming weeks, it won't be a Movie a Day.

Christmas Movie a Day #12
Miracle on 34th Street (1994 edition)
Starring Richard Attenborough, Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott, and Mara Wilson
Directed by Les Mayfield

It's a sign of the times that we'd see a drunken Santa's butt crack in a remake of Miracle on 34th Street. Aaah...nearly 50 years after the original and we've grown so much as a society that we know deem butt cheeks funny. But maybe I'm just cynical...

Nevertheless, this remake moves the story to modern day and replaces Macy's with the make-believe Cole's (one would imagine that Macy's wouldn't shell out the product placement moolah...aahh...cynicism again). Everything else is pretty much the same, except there's a ridiculously unnecessary subplot about a rival store's attempts at a corporate takeover of Cole's (once again...nothing like placing modern-day worries into a sweet, sentimental tale) which manages to add twenty minutes to the plot.

Certainly helping this film revival is Mara Wilson as young Susan. She manages to convey a little more emotion into the character than Natalie Wood (although Wilson does fall into the "too smart for her own good" trap that screenwriters are want to do). On a side note, whatever happened to Mara Wilson? I guess people got tired of her lisp, but I thought she was kinda cute in Mrs. Doubtfire, Matilda, and this...but she hasn't done a thing this decade. Dylan McDermott is also a tad better as the lawyer who helps Kris Kringle get out of his jam. While others like Elizabeth Perkins as Susan's mom and Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle are fine, they don't quite match up to Maureen O'Hara and Edmund Gwenn (particularly Attenborough...although he had a very tough act to follow with the magical Gwenn).

This remake certainly isn't bad, and while I'd choose the original over this one, it still would be worth the watch should it come on tv.

The RyMickey Rating: C+
The Christmas Spirit Scale: 6/10
(The Christmas Spirit Scale is a totally pointless rating that is simply my feeling about how "Christmas-y" the movie felt to me)