For those wondering who would build a giant holiday musical-comedy around Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, the «produced by Will Ferrell» credit provides a helpful clue. «Spirited» tries turning «A Christmas Carol» on its head, and while it’s big and boisterous, the movie (hitting theaters before Apple TV+) isn’t consistently irreverent enough to feel like much more than a streaming stocking stuffer.
For those wondering who would build a giant holiday musical-comedy around Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, the “produced by Will Ferrell” credit provides a helpful clue. “Spirited” tries turning “A Christmas Carol” on its head, and while it’s big and boisterous, the movie (hitting theaters before Apple TV+) isn’t consistently irreverent enough to feel like much more than a streaming stocking stuffer.
Directed and co-written by Sean Anders (“Daddy’s Home”) with songs by the “La La Land” team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, “Spirited” certainly has a big, Broadway-tinged feel, while shrewdly surrounding its leads (not primarily known for their song-and-dance moves) with hordes of people accomplished in doing both.
The playful tone, however, oscillates between self-referential nods to the incongruity of people suddenly bursting into song and holiday-movie sentimentality, when either a more bare-knuckled commitment to satire or an unabashed embrace of its sappiness would be in order.
