29 years after it was released to a tidal wave of negative reviews, one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most underrated action movies is making a comeback on streaming. It might only be November, but after the year we’ve all had, the Holiday Season cannot come soon enough. At least, that’s the impression Hulu subscribers are giving, as several Christmas movies are currently in the streamer’s Top 15 chart. Alongside the likes of A Very Jonas Christmas Movie, Last Holiday, and Joy to the World, Arnie’s criminally underrated Christmas action flick, Jingle All the Way, is making a comeback on streaming.
Jingle All the Way is currently streaming on Hulu and, at the time of writing, it is the 13th most popular film on the streamer this week. Released in 1996, Jingle All the Way stars Arnie (a former Mr Olympia bodybuilder, by the way) as just your regular average Joe father named Howard. As Christmas approaches, Howard stupidly promises to get his son the most popular toy of the season, Turbo Man, sending him on a wild goose chase to get the last one. The official synopsis reads:
“Workaholic Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) wants to make things up to his son, Jamie (Jake Lloyd), and wife, Liz (Rita Wilson). He promises to get Jamie the hottest toy of the season, Turbo-Man — even though it’s Christmas Eve and the toy is practically sold out. As Langston hunts down the elusive gift, he runs into mailman Myron (Sinbad), another father on the same quest. With the clock winding down, Langston’s moral code is tested as he starts to learn the real meaning of Christmas.”
Alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film also stars Sinbad, the late Phil Hartman, Rita Wilson, Robert Conrad, and Jake Lloyd. The movie is non-stop bonkers action. Don’t expect any life-changing storylines or gripping, Oscar-worthy performances from Arnie or anyone involved. To put it plainly, Jingle All the Way is pure fun.
‘Jingle All the Way’ Didn’t Deserve to Be Such a Flop
Is Jingle All the Way the best movie ever made? While there’s probably somebody out there who thinks so, most sane people would probably say no. However, when the film was released in 1997, it was maligned by audiences and critics. Jingle All the Way holds a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 20% from a mix of original and contemporary reviews. Audiences were slightly kinder, bestowing the film with a 41% rating.
Among those user reviews were some who thought Jingle All the Way was unfairly scathed in the ’90s, like one user who wrote, “Jingle All the Way is way better than people give it credit for,” while others called it “underrated” and “extremely entertaining.” There were others who hated the movie with passion, like this user review that read, “One of the worst Christmas films ever made and yet there’s AMC, TBS, and Freeform shoving it down our throats every year!” Finally, there are those who saw the best of both worlds from within the film, like this user, who wrote, “It really goes off the rails in the second half, but it is still a fun holiday movie.”
- Release Date
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November 22, 1996
- Runtime
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89 Minutes
- Director
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Brian Levant
- Writers
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Randy Kornfield