How 'The Knight Before Christmas' Wasted a Perfect Title

So I’m not really one for Hallmark Christmas movies, or one for romantic comedies either. But after seeing the trailer for Netflix’s The Knight Before Christmas, oh baby, I was in. The movie has such a perfectly dumb premise that it’s kind of genius. A medieval knight travels through time to fall in love with Vanessa Hudgens, and the movie is called The Knight Before Christmas. Knight with a K, it’s fucking brilliant. So I watched it.

Now, I went in not expecting a masterpiece or anything, I’m well aware that Hallmark Christmas movies are of a smaller caliber than their peers, but I still found myself disappointed with the end result. The movie’s not bad or offensive or anything, but it has such a great premise that is frankly wasted with traditional Hallmark movie trappings. So let's get into it.

The movie starts out pretty good. We get a lot of delightfully cheesy cliches with Vanessa Hudgens’ character’s introduction. She’s a teacher named Ms. Winters, and her student is upset that her boyfriend broke up with her. Vanessa tells her that true love doesn’t exist and that she should focus on her career. A classic example of ironical forecasting. Then magic knight shows up, and we get a meet cute where Vanessa hits him with her car, followed by a series of scenes taken right out of the first Thor film where the knight is perplexed by modern day technology. They even do the "Another!" joke with a beverage at a cafe. All of this is really fun, cheesy and exactly what I signed up for.

However, after the first day or so in the story, the movie kind of meanders. The plot is that the Knight has been sent to the present by some kind of witch to discover his quest by midnight Christmas eve. The movie starts on like the 19th of December so he only has a few days. The audience, watching a Hallmark Christmas movie, knows that his quest is to fall in love with Vanessa Hudgens, but the Knight never seems to figure that out. So there isn’t really a story for the entire middle hour of this movie. The Knight and Vanessa just do generic Hallmark Christmas movie things, like cutting down a real Christmas tree or… baking? I guess? There’s nothing really wrong with these scenes, they’re just boring.

My frustration came from how the movie just forgot to have conflict. Every time I thought they were going to do something fun with the characters, they were just like, “nah.” Like early on they set up Vanessa’s ex boyfriend who the characters still run into because small town. I guess he cheated on her so the Knight is like, “I will duel him!” So I expected to see some kind of confrontation with him later on. You know, make him like an antagonist, a foil for the Knight’s character. But we don't get that. Like, no one even really questions that a medieval knight is wandering around town. They think he has amnesia, and he doesn't seem to be hurting anyone, so everyone kind of collectively leaves him alone. You could have made the ex boyfriend really antagonistic towards the Knight and full on call him out as a crazy person, almost like the psychiatrist in Miracle on 34th Street. But no, he just disappears from the movie. There’s also this other scene where this redhead chick asks out the Knight, because, you know he’s hot. And I was like, “Aha, a temptress! Finally we can have some drama!” But again, no. The Knight is just like, “No thanks, I’m good.”

And she’s just like, "fair enough," and leaves. It’s such an obvious set up, Vanessa hasn’t made a move or anything yet, and the Knight is super oblivious to social cues, so I thought for sure he would go out with her, not knowing how it would make Vanessa feel. But no, we can’t have any conflict in our movie because that would be too interesting.

The movie does eventually realize that maybe something should happen, so there’s a sequence where Vanessa’s nice gets lost in a snowstorm, and the Knight has to save from falling into a frozen lake. But she doesn’t even fall in the water, like come on, give me something movie! Later, there’s another scene where the Knight stops a purse snatcher, and it’s kinda great because the thief is just like, “Fine, arrest me, just get me away from that sword guy.”

And then the police are like, “Thanks for helping out, ever consider joining the force?” And I'm like, that’s the movie I want to see! Medieval Knight: Police Officer. Just a series of scenes where the Knight stops different crimes, but with a sword. Unfortunately, they don’t do anything with this idea, and it isn't brought up again.

There’s just so much wasted potential here. You have a medieval Knight but zero sword fights! There’s infinite possibilities you could do with this premise. For example, there’s a scene where the Knight teaches Vanessa’s nice how to sword fight. So what about a scene later on where she uses what she’s learned to beat up a bully or something? What about a Grinch/Scrooge type character that hates Christmas, but then the Knight wins them over with his valiance and they have a change of heart? Or you could go in a direction like Miracle on 34th Street, and have a legitimate debate about whether or not the Knight is a crazy person. They don’t even do a joke about chivalry being dead! I mean, come on movie!

The movie does do some fun stuff. There’s apparently this trend in Netflix Christmas movies, to reference other Netflix Christmas movies, and we get some fun references here as well. There’s a scene where the characters watch Christmas movies on Netflix, and my mom caught a reference to Belgravia, the fictional nation from The Princess Switch, another Netflix Christmas movie starring Vanessa Hudgens where the characters spend time watching Christmas movies on Netflix. The movie also has an end credits scene, setting up a sequel with the brother of the Knight. All of this suggests some kind of attempt at a Netflix Hallmark Christmas Cinematic Universe, an NHCCU if you will, which is so dumb that I am completely onboard for it.

I was also quick to figure out that this movie was shot in Bracebridge Ontario, a small town not too far from where I live that is notable for having a kid's theme park called Santa's Village, which the movie uses as one of its sets. This was obvious not just because I've been there and recognized it, but also because the movie claims to be set in "Bracebridge, Ohio" which is not a real place, but clearly an attempt to cover the movie's ass just in case there's a sign reading Bracebridge in the background somewhere. Incredible.

Again, this movie isn’t especially bad for the genre, it just wastes such a great premise that so much more could have been done with. Like this movie is called The Knight Before Christmas! Knight with a K! It’s a fucking amazing title! And it’s wasted on this mediocrity!

Also, I found this amazing iMDB review that I’m just going to paste here:

"Turned Off After 35 Minutes!!

OK, now I know the film is a fictitious story of a time travelling Knight but they got a really easy fact wrong and after that I just couldn't watch it anymore. The Knight said his family would put candles on a tree with presents and oranges (or words to that effect) to celebrate Christmas. The tradition of decorating a tree was in fact introduced to England by Queen Victoria (well Prince Albert to be precise) several hundred years years after the age of knights!!! 1/10"

Oh man, way to have your priorities straight.