USS Christmas (2020)

(On TV, December 2020) The Hallmark Christmas movie behemoth leers toward the American military-entertainment complex in USS Christmas, a transposition of the brand’s usual serving of holiday romance to a military setting. The plot has to do with a journalist taking a tiger cruise, encountering a mysteriously seductive Grinch (it’s his call name) and digging into a romantic mystery in the ship’s archives. While the aircraft carrier makes for a more intriguing than usual backdrop to the romance, the film pretty much plays to expectations. If you’ve seen a Hallmark Christmas romance movie, you‘ll be right at ease here – the intent is comfort, not surprise or shock. Alas, this also means that the film gets away with the usual problems of the brand: cute-but-not-sexy leads, mismatched chemistry, outrageous plot holes and, specific to USS Christmas, a very long list of inaccuracies from mismatch between stock footage and shooting location to being fuzzy about service distinction, to the characters simply not acting like officers would. (Thanks to a very well-informed American audience, there are long and hilariously detailed lists of the film’s mistakes.) Whether USS Christmas works will depend on your expectations. Just want something to throw on the TV while wrapping gifts? That’ll do. Expecting anything more? Skip to the next film, any next film.