Movie Review: Christmas Scavenger Hunt

    Hello, hello, and welcome to Wednesday's blog post! This Sunday I had the pleasure of being able to watch Kevin McGarry's latest Christmas movie, Christmas Scavenger Hunt. I was looking forward to this movie more than others all because one half of our When Calls the Heart love triangle was the leading man. Despite the fact that I'm not rooting for him to win Elizabeth's heart, I have come to enjoy the characters he plays. That being said, sadly, I didn't love this movie as much as I would have liked to.

    Now due to the whole Lucas vs. Nathan battle going on in WCTH I will admit that I am very bias when it comes to watching McGarry, however, he was arguably the best part of this movie, and the main reason to give this movie a watch.

Characters

    Let's start with Kim Shaw's character Belinda. Now this is the first time I've ever seen Kim Shaw in anything, and based off of a picture I saw on IMDB I thought she looked fine. After watching the movie, however, I can now say that she's not my favorite actress. The good news is that she did work good with Kevin McGarry which is important.

    I didn't really care a whole lot for her acting, and her character wasn't the greatest. She was sweet, and kind, especially to James the old man who lived alone, but she's definitely far from my favorite character.

    Kevin McGarry was the best part of this movie. I enjoyed his fun, dry sort of humor, and I liked his sweet lopsided grin. His character, Dustin, was a great guy and fun to watch. Sadly, I seem to enjoy watching McGarry in everything, but WCTH. Everywhere else he has this fun sense of humor that makes me smile and laugh, but, in WCTH he was more serious, and dare I say grumpy. (Hopefully Season 7 will fix that!)

    Anyhow, as for his story it was very sweet. He gave up his true love so she could pursue her dreams, and so he could help his family after his father lost his job. Very sweet and romantic!

    Tom Arnold played Belinda's dad, Carl. Again this is another actor that I don't believe that I've seen anywhere else, and despite the fact that he sounded like he had a bad cold, he was fun. Not the best I've seen, but not the worst either. He seemed to just say the first thing that came to mind, and made me laugh which is a nice bonus.

 

Scenery

    For me the scenery was nothing special. Just a small town at Christmas, with snow and some decorations. There wasn't anything that really made it stand out, except for the museum that they were trying to save, which that wasn't really spectacular either. The bridge where they kiss, however is a nice and romantic spot.

Chemistry

    There was some chemistry between Belinda and Dustin. They were sweet together, and you could believe that they loved each other.

    Some of my favorite moments between them were,

    When Belinda was stuffing her face with cookie and Dustin remembered it as her frustrated quirk. Lol!

    And when Dustin gave her the locket. Just their cute little comments to each other, pulled at my heartstrings. 

    The big "reveal" was also good. It really was this "Oh my goodness, that's why" moment, and helped put you into Belinda's shoes. It felt more real, and made Belinda realize that Dustin didn't dump her because he didn't love her. It was actually the opposite reason, and it really helped drive the story onward.

    I'm also going to mention the fact that it was Belinda who went after Dustin in the end. Interesting choice, but it would have been nice to see Dustin fight a bit for her, and tell her how he really feels. Once again I guess maybe he didn't want to hold her back or get in the way. After all it's been years since they've seen each other, but I thought I'd just throw that out there.

    The one part that didn't fail, and arguably one of the most important parts to a Hallmark film, was the kiss at the end. Sure we had to wait until the last few minutes of the movie, but they didn't just kiss for a few seconds and pan away. They finally came together, kissed, and then we got to see them at Christmas dinner with Belinda's family. Dustin was sweet, and got her that locket, (Totally caught that foreshadow by the way) and then they kissed again. THEN to top it all off we got a bonus scene where they find where they carved their names on the bridge post and kissed AGAIN!

    For me a movie can have great chemistry, but if they mess up the kiss it really lowers my opinion of it.

Plot

    The plot was very interesting and different in the fact that the WHOLE movie took place in pretty much one day. I have never seen that from Hallmark, and so that was interesting. Another thing was the whole scavenger hunt theme, which again was a new one for me.

    The sad part is that the story didn't really do it for me. There were some cute things here and there, but over all the story was more boring for me then other movies I've seen. Since the story happened in a day there wasn't much time for anything to happen except watch them play the game. There also wasn't really anything on the line. No deadline to reach, no huge goal to accomplish, except for saving the museum.

    Speaking of which, the whole plight of the museum failed to convince me it was worth saving. It obviously held special memories for Belinda, and it appeared to help bring Jax's mom home, but I wasn't given enough info to really care about it.

It needed a story, or to have a huge role to the town. I've watched a couple of different Hallmark Movies where the story was centered around saving a business, but there was a good reason behind it. Something like it's the legacy of a beloved grandparent or it's what's keeping half the town employed. Those are reasons I can stand behind, but I just didn't really have one like that for the museum.

    In the end, Kevin McGarry was the hero of this story. He was sweet, kind, made one of the biggest sacrifices he ever could, and let Belinda go, all in the name of love, and even brought an Army mom back to her family for Christmas. Kudos Dustin! Your one of the good ones!

 

WCTH Reference

   

  
    Don't worry I haven't missed or forgotten this important moment in the movie. For any of you who didn't catch it, Kevin McGarry said something with very special significance, especially since he's now playing Mountie Nathan in WCTH.

    After building the snowman, Dustin said five very important words. "Take a walk with me."

    I straight up paused the movie, and sat in my shock. Those are our beloved Mountie Jack's most famous words! Now they are coming out of the man playing his Mountie replacement! What. Does. This. Mean?!?

    It could mean absolutely nothing. I mean, what else was he supposed to say? Walk with me? Would you walk with me? The phrase just fit. Yet, I can't help wondering if the writers knew the significance of the phrase, and either used it anyway or even did it on purpose. Is it a sign? Or is it just a huge coincidence?

    Either way, the Hearties didn't really seem phased by it. Actually they seemed to love it, if the comments I read on Twitter mean anything. For me, since I'm Team Lucas, it's more, "Oh my! How dare you!" But once again it's a romantic line that I like so, oh well.


    In the end, this wasn't one of my favorite movies. It wasn't even my favorite Kevin McGarry movie, but I got some laughs, and some romantic feels from it. Again McGarry was one of, if not the best, part of the movie.

    Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment below or on my Twitter page! (Blog comments will be responded to via email.) God Bless!