note: also appears in part on Flixster and The Student Room

Arnold Schwarzenegger is best known for his superb action films from the late 80s and early 90s, such as The Terminator, Predator, Commando and The Running Man. However, he has made a few more family-friendly films such as the utterly daft Kindergarten Cop and also the hilarious Jingle All The Way. Arnie, now very self aware of his status, took full advantage, with this daft, but undeniably entertaining film that mocks the commercial "spirit" of Christmas, and how insane the whole holiday makes us.

Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a hotshot and hard worker, but sadly he works too much and never has time for his wife Liz (Rita Wilson) and his young son, Jamie (Jake Lloyd). He asks his son what he can do to make it up to him, and he declares that if he buys him a Turbo Man doll, he'll make everything great again. Although it plays this premise mostly straight, it's clearly a knock at the commercial nature of Christmas, and to be honest, his kid is portrayed as quite a brat throughout, not realising that his father works incredibly hard to give him the life he has.

Howard also has to deal with his seemingly perfect neighbour, Ted Maltin (Phil Hartman), who is recently divorced and attempting to make his moves on Rita. What's more, when Howard forgets to get the doll and has to try and nab one at the last minute, he has to contend with Myron Larabee (Sinbad), a postal worker who also wants to get the last doll in town.

This is a guilty pleasure film of mine - Arnie is so propsterously miscast that one can't help but laugh heartily at this mess. I love it, even though my film sense tells me I should know better. It's bad, but so bad it's good without a doubt, and a very legitimate satire of how something as simple as a holiday turns us into veritable savages.