Review
BLIZZARD
Starring Jennifer Pisanaa, Brenda Blethyn and Christopher Plummer
Directed by LeVar Burton
Opens Friday, December 12
Check lisings
Watching Blizzard is like eating a large Dairy Queen dessert of the same name. You feel like you shouldn’t be enjoying it as much as you are because it's sickeningly sweet and excessive and yet there you are with a huge smile on your face enjoying the sugar rush.
The trick, however, to making it through Blizzard is surviving the unengaging opening. For a Christmas movie it sure takes a long time getting to the North Pole.
First you have to meet Jess (Jennifer Pisana), a 10-year-old girl who is distraught because her best friend has just moved away right before Christmas. She is completely despondent until her Aunt Millie (Brenda Blethyn) arrives and tells her a magical tale.
Through Aunt Millie’s story we’re introduced to Katie Andrews (Zoe Warner) who dreams of becoming a world-class figure skater. By a convenient twist of fate, she happens to be skating on the same outdoor pond as a former gold medal Olympian who decides to become her coach. Alas, just as Katie starts to become a proficient skater, her family is forced to move to the big, bad city because her dad loses his job at the local factory. No more free skating lessons for her.
Luckily, just when you are almost bored out of your skull by this cheesy storyline, Blizzard, a young reindeer voiced by Whoopi Goldberg, comes along and rescues you. Blizzard, it turns out, is one exceptional reindeer. She can fly faster than any other reindeer her age, she can make herself invisible and she also has the gift of "empathetic navigation" (apparently this gift means that she’s able to see into the hearts of humans). Through "empathetic navigation" Blizzard discovers Katie’s pain and, of course, helps her skate again. Goldberg avoids her trademark sarcasm and instead plays Blizzard as enthusiastically mischievous, making the character irresistible.
Filmed in old Quebec City, the North Pole in this movie feels original and magical. Santa, played superbly by Christopher Plummer, is clad in fur and buckskin with beadwork rather than a red suit. Kevin Pollak is also hilarious as Archimedes, a kind of North Pole CEO. A tyrant obsessed with rules, Archimedes decides immediately that he doesn’t like Blizzard because she doesn’t like to follow those rules. In the North Pole the talking reindeer steal every scene through their witty dialogue and reindeer games.
Despite the slow start and the length of time it takes to tie the three storylines together, the movie manages to be heartwarming and quite entertaining, especially in the scenes at the North Pole. Even if you try to resist it, you’ll probably walk away feeling imbued with Christmas spirit. |
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