If Kirk Cameron were working at a shopping mall kiosk, I’d probably consider buying whatever he was selling — even if I already owned two of them. Far removed from his “Growing Pains” heyday, the 44-year-old actor retains the same genial, twinkly-eyed charm that made him a teen heartthrob.
But boy, does he work that salesmanship in “Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas,” a glorified infomercial in defense of the holiday that contains about 15 minutes of actual content padded out with almost an hour of filler. It’s no wonder that Cameron’s name is featured so prominently in the title. As narrator, star and on-camera “host” of the tale — which he introduces over a mug of hot cocoa by a roaring fire, as if this were “Masterpiece Theater” or something — Cameron presents himself as not just an executive producer but some kind of superhero in an ugly Christmas sweater, ready to single-handedly rescue the baby Jesus from the burning fires of secularism.
As he makes clear in the film’s sluggish prologue, Christmas needs saving — but not from the non-Christians who complain about having candy canes shoved down their throats at this time of year. (That, presumably, will be the subject of his next film.) Rather, it’s Christians themselves, many of whom have lost touch with the holiday’s roots and true meaning, who need schooling.
And so it’s off to the classroom we go with Professor Cameron. Or, rather, off to the front seat of an SUV, where most of this leaden movie takes place. That’s where Cameron, playing himself, finds his Scrooge-like brother-in-law, the unsubtly named Christian (director Darren Doane). Christian, it seems, has retreated to his car to get away from a houseful of holiday revelers, disgusted by both the crassness of contemporary Christmas and the holiday’s presumed pagan roots in the midwinter festival of Yule.
Cameron launches into his spiel about the history and Christly symbolism of the Christmas tree, Santa Claus (a.k.a. the fourth-century bishop St. Nicholas) and the Nativity — which he gratingly insists on pronouncing “neigh-tivity.” It’s all in service, he says, of putting the “‘Christ’ back in Christmas.”
This would be all well and good if the film were simply a short YouTube clip (like the infamous one in which the born-again actor appears alongside creationist Ray Comfort, using a banana to debunk evolution). But investing 80 minutes in this preachy car talk feels like Sunday school combined with cheerleading practice.
The one sales pitch that’s hardest to buy is Cameron’s insistence that there’s nothing wrong with the materialistic focus of Christmas. His characterization of Jesus as a “material” gift to us from God — evidence, he claims, that God wants us to shop — should offend anyone who balks at placing the Christ Child on the same scale as a $25 gift card.
★
PG. At area theaters. Contain some thematic material that might be mildly upsetting to very small children, particularly those who believe in Santa Claus. 80 minutes.