The Knight Before Christmas

Next in my Netflix recommendations was The Knight Before Christmas, released in 2019. I do enjoy a good terrible pun, so I really tried to give this movie a chance. It still managed to disappoint. As usual, I watched twenty minutes before predicting what else would happen in the movie, then I had to finish the movie to see how I did.

[Spoilers for the whole movie below.]

We begin in fourteenth century England, where knight Sir Cole (Josh Whitehouse), his brother, and others compete to capture a hawk released from the castle, a Christmastime tradition. Searching for the bird in the woods, Cole meets an old crone, who tells him that he must complete a quest before Christmas Eve is over or get stuck where she’s sending him, which is 21^st century Ohio. There, high school science teacher Brooke (Vanessa Hudgens), doesn’t believe in love anymore because of an ex-boyfriend who broke up with her. That night, she takes her niece to the “Christmas castle,” the town’s Christmas village-type celebration, where she runs into Cole, newly arrived and confused. Leaving the Christmas castle, she runs into Cole again, this time with her car. They go to the hospital, and upon Cole’s release, Brooke offers to let Cole stay in her guest house since he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

Some other things happen before the twenty minute mark, but at this point we still have absolutely no idea what Cole’s quest is. No problem; I’ll just make it up. We’ll say that Cole’s quest is to do something grand and heroic that will prove him to be a true knight, but that somehow turns into finding his true love, who is, of course, Brooke. Brooke, in showing Cole what Christmas in the 21^st century is like, will fall in love with her quaint guest. Cole, for his part, falls in love with the woman teaching him about all the new and exciting things around him. As they confess their love for each other, Cole fulfills his quest and can return to his time. Brooke realizes there’s nothing left for her in the 21^st century and goes with Cole back to 14^th century England, where they ride off into the sunset together to live happily ever after in the castle.

Here’s what actually happens:

Cole shows up a week before Christmas, so he has six days to complete his quest. Faced with the prospects of never returning to his own time or place, he spends the first few days doing such things as: binge watching TV, stick-sword fighting with Brooke’s niece, learning to talk to Amazon’s Alexa, and shopping for hot chocolate. At one point, he rescues Brooke’s niece and her friend when they get lost approximately five feet from the house, and later catches a pickpocket at the Christmas castle, but neither of these is quest-worthy enough. On Christmas Eve, he attends the Christmas feast organized by Brooke, a tradition she’s carrying on for her late parents. After the successful feast, Brooke and Cole, recognizing their attraction to each other, kiss, satisfying Cole’s quest with hours to spare. He returns to his time and place, leaving a heartbroken Brooke behind. Back in England, Cole meets his brother, who encourages him to go be with his true love. Cole rides through the woods to look for the old woman and when he finds her, tells her he wants to be with Brooke. The crone sends him and his horse off to Ohio, where he finds Brooke at the Christmas castle and they literally ride off together on his horse.

So I got the century wrong, but other than that, could there have been any other way for this movie to go? In hindsight, it makes much more sense for Cole to go to the 21^st century than for Brooke to go to the 14^th. Basically the whole movie takes place in present day, and Brooke has her sister and niece, plus a job and all her students, while Cole only has a brother with thirty seconds of screen time, so it’s much easier to completely uproot him from everything he’s ever known than for Brooke to leave the town and people we’ve come to know and love throughout the movie.

The acting and dialog were about par for this kind of movie, and Vanessa Hudgens and Josh Whitehouse weren’t too bad together. The plot drove me a little crazy, because Cole does almost nothing to figure out what his quest is, then he kisses Brooke and out of nowhere it’s like, “oh, hey, that’s it, quest completed. Goodbye.” There’s also a side plot with one of Brooke’s students that includes her giving her student borderline inappropriate advice and almost every line of dialog between them is terrible. Then there’s the scene at the Christmas feast where they present a widower struggling to provide for his children with an envelope of money and a bunch of gifts, then stand around and watch them open their presents while patting themselves on the back for their kindness and generosity. Could they not give the family some privacy? Also, one kid gets a bike and another kid gets a jacket, which I guess is at least a few steps up from a new toothbrush.

I actually thought this movie had some potential – person transported into the future discovering newfangled technology can usually be played for humor, but I was not particularly amused in this case. Moving on to the next movie; maybe that one will be better. (Please let it be better.)