The movie starts out with the most annoying title sequence of all time. A jazzy Christmas song plays while the camera pans over a map of America. A little animated white ball wearing a Santa hat flies all over screen and supplies os to everyones name and makes boingy sounds. Also, when a trumpet solo comes up, it takes off its hat and plays it like a trumpet. So irritating. It also does one of those things where someones name was put up wrong, so it fixes it. Its the editors name too, so I think thats a diss on him. Well see if its deserved. It then uses the hat as a parachute for a while until it gets run over by producer Tracey Trenchs name. That was satisfying. By the way, it stops its mischievous activities just in time for director Arlene Sanfords name. I guess Arlene thought it was okay to distract from everyone elses name with that stupid white ball, but when it came time for her name, she demanded that the ball respect her. The floating map comes to rest on Los Angeles and then turns into a college campus. White letters inform us that this is the Palisades College. Then we see kids at lockers. Right now Im trying to figure out what kind of college has lockers. Oh, and theres Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT from now on, because thats so much cooler) himself, walking down the hall and saying hi to everyone. He must be cool and popular. His friend Ian is stuck in his own locker. Does that even happen in real life? My lockers in high school were so small I could barely fit my jacket in them, and I dont have lockers at my college so I wouldnt know. Anyway, JTT frees him, but only after Ian slides copies of upcoming tests and backstage passes to a Dave Matthews Band show out through the little slats. Oooh, so JTT is a bad boy here! What a risky character choice for the teen idol! Dont worry, ladies, he plays it the exact same way he played Randy on Home Improvement. Anyway, it turns out that Ian got thrown into the locker because some guy named Eddie and his friends were angry about fake IDs JTT and Ian sold them. Fake IDs! Cheating on math tests! Will this reign of terror never end? Oh, JTT, you are such a lovable scamp! JTT thrusts tickets back home to New York into Ians hands and tells him to change them to tickets to Cabo San Lucas. I have never heard of such a place, because Im not as cool or smooth as JTT.
And now JTT is walking down yet another hall, past a bunch of ladies with white patches over their noses. I smell a Clueless-style nose-job joke, but actually they are wearing those sticky things that supposedly remove blackheads. They dont work, by the way. Not that I have blackheads. Because I dont. Really. Really! Dammit, this movie is making me insecure already. JTT knocks on a door, and some ugly girl wearing a basketball uniform opens it. Now Im really confused, because this college has a bunch of young-looking students and lockers, but also dorms. Is it a boarding school, perhaps? Then why is it called a college? JTT is said to be 18, which means he could be in high school or college. I dont know which it is, and it wont ever be explained in the movie either, so lets all stop worrying about it. Because it wont be the first thing in this movie that goes completely unexplained, and well have to ignore all of those things too, so just get used to it. The ugly basketball girl wont let JTT into the room until he gives her chocolate bars. He does so, because he is so smooth that he always carries them around to bribe chocolate-loving females. By the way, JTT is so short that this girl towers over him. And hes wearing a really ugly shirt. Anyway, he walks over to Jessica Biel, whose characters name is Allie, and is JTTs girlfriend, and shall henceforth be known as Mary, in honor of her 7th Heaven characters name. Shes sleeping in bed. JTT lies down to her. Scandalous! Then she wakes up and freaks out because she fell asleep studying for a French final that's in three hours. Before she can kick him out, JTT gives her tickets to that Cabo San Lucas place so they can spend Christmas there together. Mary gets all huffy and leaves.
Now theyre walking outside, and Mary is still angry that JTT would be so daring as to hook her up with tickets to a tropical paradise where they will stay in a three-bedroom condo overlooking the ocean. Mary wants to spend Christmas with her family in New York. She rants about how upset her parents would be if she didnt come home for Christmas and blah blah blah. I stop paying attention because she looks cross-eyed when she says all this and thats funny. Oh, and we find out that JTT doesnt want to go home because his dad has a new wife.
And now a big ol SUV drives up containing Eddie, who is played by Adam La Vorgna, who I will call Robbie in honor of his 7th Heaven character. I read that the set of this movie is where Biel and La Vorgna met and started dating, but I dont see how that's possible since they gave Robbie a really awful hairstyle. Its all long and almost mullet-y, and its greasy. It makes his ears look really small too. Anyway, Robbie comes on to Mary totally in front of JTT until he gets his just desserts and backs into a BMW accidentally. By the way, I have never heard of a boarding school that lets its students bring their own cars to campus.
Now JTT is talking to three guys who each look about thirty-five years old. But apparently they're supposed to be younger than that, because theyre angry at JTT about the bad fake IDs. JTT tells them he can get them As on their history final for free to make it up to them. Hey, do you think that maybe JTT is a smooth and smart-alecky con artist? I dont know how that idea popped into my head, but it might have something to do with the three anvils that just fell on it that read, JTT is a smooth and smart-alecky con artist who will need to change his ways if he wants to get home in time for Christmas.
And were in JTTs dorm room. Ian is packing for him. Whats the deal with Ian here? Is he an indentured servant? Or perhaps his low self-esteem is what's making him so servile to JTT. I would like to explore this potentially interesting dynamic of Ian and JTTs relationship, but of course that wont happen. JTTs dad calls him. JTTs dad is played by Gary Cole, who basically acts the same way he did in the Brady Bunch movies, except its not funny here. And how much better would this movie be if he were actually Gary Coleman, which was who I thought played JTTs dad. I was mistaken, and now must be punished by watching Gary Cole. JTT and Dad argue about JTT not coming home for Christmas while JTTs sister laughs, and I hate her already. We find out that JTTs mom died, and he hasnt been home for the holidays since. Dad bribes JTT with a Porsche to come home by six oclock on Christmas Eve. He agrees.
JTT meets Mary on her way out of the French final and tell her that he got tickets to New York and theyre going back together. My boyfriend from college (and that would be real college, not whatevers going on in this movie) lives in Georgia and I live in Connecticut, so when vacations come up, we dont see each other for weeks or months. But JTT and Mary live in the same freaking town. How nice. Mary does her best to impersonate the worst actor in my fifth-grade play, thus making the make-up scene completely unconvincing despite the clarinet of resolved conflict that blares in the background.