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| this movie's title is way better in Portuguese |
Watched: 12/16/2024
Format: streaming
Viewing: First
Director: Terry Ingram
So, among the new formulas Hallmark has been deploying, one mainstay has been the adaption of concepts from older, popular films but not so close there's potential legal action, and mostly by Hallmarking them up. You liked Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Go enjoy The Christmas Quest. Any of a hundred snobs versus slobs comedies? Go see The Santa Class. It's nothing new in movies to lightly borrow from each other - or heavily borrow - and Hallmark is not alone in this. But there's a certain gloss that makes things Hallmark, from casting to the required baking scenes. And that's fine. It's an all-new version of Hallmark bingo.
Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022) echoes the 1980's popular comedy Three Men and a Baby. It's in the title. No one is playing hide-the-ball here. I did not like Three Men and a Baby in the 1980's when I saw it, because I was 13, mostly concerned for the baby, do not swoon over Tom Selleck, and knew the baby would be taken away eventually. Virile 80's dudes only deal with babies in short bursts. I'd be lying if I said I remembered details.
Written by Hallmark writer/ actors Kimberley Sustad and Paul Campbell, and directed by workhorse Terry Ingram, this film stars three familiar Hallmark faces - Paul Campbell, Tyler Hynes, and Andrew Walker as three adult brothers, living in close proximity to their single mom, played by ID4's Margaret Colin (the First Lady. You know who I'm talking about).
Love interests include Ali Liebert as a rightfully cheesed software lead and ex of Tyler Hynes' bad-boy-of-gaming character. And Fiona Vroom, as an over-clocked client of Paul Campbell's pet therapist character.
Fireman Andrew Walker finds an infant left with him in the days before Christmas, but he knows he isn't the father, and the mother says she'll be back in her note. And so, while their mother has to leave to deal with her sister's injury, the three brothers come together to take care of the baby, realize everything their mother did and does for them, and overcome decades of snipping and sniping between them.
It's a cute movie, and for the Hallmark fans who tune in to swoon over their male actor leads, they have also provided them with a baby, which likely tripled the swoon factor as it's men doing chores and child-caring for portions of the movie. Hey, serve that audience. I got no beef with this. This is practically Magic Mike for the Hallmark scene.
Apparently this movie is crazy popular, and the three male leads were keynote guests on the Hallmark Christmas Cruise. And appear at the Hallmark Christmas Experience in Kansas City.* There's a goofy nutcracker dance the guys do. And I guess they did it on the cruise and will be asked to do it until they're too old to move, if Hallmark fans have their way. This will baffle bystanders.
The movie is not as madcap as I was expecting as the characters sort out their differences, finding beats for easily remedied melodrama. And because the characters are all good guys, they all are portrayed as caring about the baby and dealing with the unknowns with some exhaustion, but with some grace. The funniest characters are Fiona Vroom's Susie and neighbor Matt Hamilton's Christmas decorating obsessed former high school bully, Mark. Although Sustad's 1 minute of screentime is pretty good.
I thought the movie was setting things up that one of our leads was secretly gay and would come out, but that was way too much to expect from a Hallmark film, I guess, and instead he just needs to remain available til you meet a character in the last few minutes who they went way out of their way to cast someone appropriately hot to match his handsomeness.
The ending was kind of nice in how it sort of doesn't work out, but it's fine... the real win was not a lights contest entry. And the epilogue showing a year later was unusual for Hallmark. As Jamie pointed out - usually there's a single dry kiss under the gazebo, and then it's over in seconds and Hallmark is blasting "NEXT! On Hallmark! Stacey Blergh is delayed at an inn, and there's a MAN. Will she have a merry Christmas?"
In fact, what I want to see is what happens when the business lady DOES abandon City for Town and realizes she can't get Doordash and the only culture is karaoke at the VFW and she's done this for a guy who only works for two months a year as a Christmas Tree seller. SHOW ME THE RECKONING.
Apparently there's a sequel to this baby movie, and I am sure we will see it before EOW.
*in my dreams, someone pays me to go and cover these things. It's got to be insane. A Trek con for Hallmark-heads
Liebert is a biscuit and a good actor, by the way
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