Movie Review: 'Jingle All The Way' (1996)

We're supposed to laugh at the mere sight of Schwarzenegger as a pratfalling dad on a Christmas Eve quest for a sold-out ''Turbo Man'' doll. But Arnold crashes through toy stores like a Humvee in a china shop, and his Teutonic accent does the same thing to the silly dialogue. When in doubt (which is often), the filmmakers let him fall back on punching out a bogus Santa or a charging reindeer. By the time they've built to a slam-bang F/X finale — with Schwarzenegger zooming through the air in a Turbo Man jet pack — the comic premise seems like the ghost of Christmas past. Don't give this crassly calculated dreck as a gift, unless you plan to put it under a plastic tree. D