User Reviews

I'm secular but usually get into the holiday spirit just out of habit (my family and several friends celebrate Xmas, and hey, there's no work on the 25th), so I figured why not watch a dramedy with Patrick Stewart?

The movie is not terrible. The ending ties characters from different elevators together, so that's a plus. If anything good can be said about the film, it's that you dislike most of the characters less by the end, even the two who were written to be the most unlikable (played by Margaret Clunie and Roxanne Cook). Christmas Eve is a "White Christmas" in more ways than one: outside it's snowy, and 95% of the actors are white (which is almost demographically impossible for 6 random elevators in NYC). The token black dude plays a semi-imbecile (sembecile?) who figures it wouldn't be in the holiday spirit to urinate when trapped in an elevator. The token Hispanic dude is the one who causes the power outage in the first 5 minutes thanks to his Virgin Mary statuette dropping off the dashboard of his van (I am not making that up). Patrick Stewart enjoyed his role as a Scroogy billionaire a little too much, perhaps due to his off-screen socialist leanings.

The cardinal sin (no pun intended) of Christmas Eve is the sick patient demanding that the atheist/agnostic physician pray for her. As someone who knows many physicians: Please, if you are religious, don't cow a secular doctor into this even if you have a poor prognosis and are trapped in an elevator. While it shouldn't've surprised me that the Virgin Mary statuette was also part of the ending (and was the subliminal instigator of events), I was nonetheless hoping for a little less religious silliness. Bill O'Reilly would probably endorse this flick as part of his waging war against the theoretical War on Xmas, and for that reason and those stated above, I will not endorse this flick (at risk of being shunned as a Grinch).

Don't waste your time, clearly the writers didn't! This movie pretends to put diverse people in a interesting situation and promises to deliver something entertaining. We set a low bar, expecting little more than a lifetime Christmas special. But this movie tripped over that bar on its way to awful! It fails! One black character and a horrible caricature of Latin characters clutching their statues of Mary and delivering tamales, are what passes for diversity.. The ending ties up no loose ends what so ever! The only reason we continued to watched this movie was find out the answer to the riddle about the wine bottle (spoiler alert: push the cork in- there, now YOU don't have to watch it! )

Elevator 1: leering creep and terrified girl. This isn't the start of a romcom, it's a horror movie. The photographer so pushes boundaries that he could easily be arrested in 49 states. She's says her name is Ann, and he immediately takes liberties with it calling her "Annie". Tell you daughters to run, not walk, away from this guy!

Elevator 2: weird group of mall goers. What husband doesn't wait for his wife at a hospital. There's no pay off for tattoo guy and the jilted musician with the matching tattoo in elevator 3! OCD guy tries to get tall to impress one of the ditzes, but then who shows up on the bench at the end, with the nervous musician from elevator 3- is she his wife? How do they even know each other? And the art docent, what on earth is he babbling about?!

Elevator 3: The musicians, this has the most potential, but what adult musicians would behave like a middle school band, with a gun! ? (Who farted? whoever smelt it dealt it! ) The unrequited love pay off between two musicians, where did that come from? Why doesn't the violinist woman want to play silent night, what's her story? The film makers never tell it!

Elevator 4: The hospital- what should be a hallmark hall of fame story gets completely ruined by a pair orderlies acting like 12 year old boys. I wanted the doctor to bitch slap them. He was too busy denying the existence of God and arguing with nurse angel about her revelations and the color of a dying woman's car (hey, filmmakers no one but no one in NYC has a car! ) . Then the patient wakes up, learns her fate, tells them she doesn't plan to tell her husband, but he will probably figure it out when she starts to smell like old fish! This one wraps up with the doctor offering a half hearted prayer (hey, filmmaker- where's the damn miracle cure!? ) and an orderly pedaling off in his urine soaked scrubs (they launder and replace these in the hospital for free, dude! )

Elevator 5: Solving the worlds energy crisis! A pair of employees, boss and underling who the boss just fired whip up the solution to deliver power to the whole wide world, on an elevator, and there was peace on earth. Two of the better actors, but no payoff since we learn that the employee is the BF of the girl trapped with the sexual predator in elevator 1 (is she poor or not?) and the neglected son of the Patrick Stewart's business man, and we never see him reunite with either of them!

Which brings us to elevator 6: Patrick Stewart, the reason you all came to this movie! He must have read the soliloquy and thought it might be good practice, or maybe the filmmakers had incriminating photos of him, either way, a great actor with a mouth full of crap writing! Worse than his character and the ridiculous things he says is that the filmmakers never resolve his story. After his come to Jesus moment in an outdoor elevator (where he could have easily been removed by a crane) He's screaming at bikers from his limo, never finds the son he realized he's ignored, and shakes and mutters at the mall rats laughing as they cross the street.

Don't even get us started on the total suspension of disbelief about the actual elevator/fire/power crisis. All of it is too ridiculous to even get started on.

The bottom line is this movie is so bad that one feels that what really happened is the filmmakers shot footage, then edited it, and everything that was left on the floor got made into THIS movie! Don't waste your time or put another dime in the pocket of the people who thought this was entertainment or art or whatever!

My wife ordered this based on reading reviews in IMDb, which I had always suggested is a good idea. Apparently she read only the first review, which gave it high marks. She did not notice the average rating, which was quite a bit lower.

In addition to transparent characters, a predictable plot, and a disappointing ending which left lots of loose ends, it was clear that the script was not given any technical scrutiny.

At the beginning of the movie, a single vehicle takes out a single ground-based transformer and wipes out the power for Manhattan. That can't happen. The fire department comes and cannot remove the van because it has become an electrical conductor which is supplying power to the only thing holding up all of the stuck elevators in the city.

The most important quality of the elevator, which opened the door to building skyscrapers, is that the braking system, developed by the Otis Elevator Company, has fail-safe, mechanical brakes. They fail only if that part of the building is destroyed. But there's more...

Although the van mysteriously supplies power to "elevator brakes," it also apparently supplies power to brilliantly light up all of the elevators in the plot. If, OTOH, the backup power system in (for example) the hospital is working, the elevators would be powered.

And then there was the construction elevator, located outside of a building, which now traps a single passenger. This elevator seems rather clumsily built, in that if one leans on the door, it falls off, and you fall out, but you can hang on and climb back in if you're lucky. Still, it is temperamental. If you yell too much, it drops several floors and slams to a stop, warning you that something, somewhere, is angry with you. This elevator finally brings its passenger to tears, who finally regrets all of the horrible things he did.

But was I warmed by the courageous woman who recovers from heart surgery in an elevator full of strangers, only to be told by her surgeon, right then, that she as a month to live? Well, she got over it in a few minutes, took control of the situation, and convinced the atheistic surgeon to lead the elevator in prayer, asking God if he could maybe do something. The dying woman was already getting snarky, goading the atheist to perfect his praying. Snarky and smiling, she finally let him finish. Really?

Watching this movie was like buying a car. The more time you have invested, the more want to just get it over with. Too much time invested to go to the next car dealer...or movie.

I voted this the worst movie my wife has ever picked. So far.

I had missed watching this Christmas film for at least two years before I finally got the opportunity, I knew the leading British star in it, and the title made it blatantly obvious when it was set, but that's about it, produced by Larry King. Basically, it is Christmas Eve in New York City, and many characters have entered elevators when there is a road accident. The driver of a van flips his vehicle which skids across a frozen lake, and crashes into a power box, which powers most of the city. The crash causes a power cut that traps the various characters in their elevators. Business tycoon Harris (Sir Patrick Stewart) is left stranded all alone in the winter cold, trapped in the cage-like lift of a skyscraper under construction, and tries calling for help. James Harris (Jon Heder) is a tech specialist who has just been fired, and he is forced to share the office elevator with Randy (Max Casella), the fantasy-football-obsessed jerk who fired him. An annoying gum-chewing photographer named B (James Roday Rodriguez) gets trapped with shy beautiful companion Ann (Julianna Guill), and while trapped she poses in photos for him and they flirt. Dr. Roberts (Gary Cole) gets trapped with an unconscious patient on a stretcher and fellow hospital staff. There is also a gang of seven bickering musicians, including sassy trumpet player Dawn (Cheryl Hines) and worrying trombone player Walt (David Bamber), and a bunch of misfits, including intelligent Briton Glen (EastEnders' Steven John Shepherd), oddball Molly (Roxy Cook) and army military clad Nick (Taylor James). All have both meaningful and insignificant conversations together, with some trying to find a way and others simply sitting and waiting for help. Eventually, the power is back, and the characters all go their separate ways, but some do reunite. Also starring Christina Chong as Karen, Juliet Aubrey as Marta, Jenny Oaks Baker as Mandy, Lex Shrapnel as Tim, Jaclyn Hales as Lila, and Clara Perez as Amelia. It may have the ensemble cast of recognisable faces, and some give reasonable performances, but they are let down by a silly script, the limited location concept does not help the pace, and I honestly do not remember laughing or caring about any particular storyline going on, I am not surprised I dozed off at some point, it is a just a boring and pointless seasonal comedy. Pretty poor!

I really liked this movie. It has been getting torn apart by critics, but I tend to be member of the Birdman train of thought about Critics, "A man becomes a critic when he cannot be an artist…" This film isn't pretentious, nor is it trying to be anything it isn't. It is a thoughtful and goofy Christmas movie.

If you feel like you need a laugh, you will find many in this movie.

Highlights of the movie for me:

-It is refreshing to see James Roday in something that isn't Psych. He does a great job being the most endearing creep there ever was. By the end of the film you feel really bad for him!

-Jon Heder and Max Casella's elevator was just delightful. There is nothing more awkward then running into an old boss, especially one that has just fired you. Now imagine being stuck with that guy overnight, in a cramped elevator. They both handle the arc of their relationship well. Jon Heder does a great job at not being the abnormal nerd, but a character with distinguishable layers.

-The film bears an overall message of the interconnectedness of us all, and how we need to slow down to see it.

Cons for me:

-A little more Roday would have been nice. Can we have a film just about his character? I mean he works at a morgue how cool is that.

I will be seeing this again! Soon!

P.S. Watch this movie with people, it's one of those movies that is better in a group of people, not locked away in a dark closet with your laptop.