If you’re a director, I honestly don’t know why you would make a movie about an eccentric inventor. It’s got everything you’d want right? You can build all sorts of insane contraptions, the set is going to be fantastic, and you can make the whole story a metaphor for your personal directorial struggles. And if you’re specifically David E. Talbert, you can turn that inventor into a bit of a Christmas singer as well to make your tale more crowd pleasing. And who knows? Maybe you could also take veiled snipes at your creative partner as well…
Set in some British town from the past (it doesn’t really matter), we’re introduced to Jeronicus Jangle, the lovable toymaker in the center of town. With his trusty apprentice Gustafson, Jeronicus’s toy shop is a massive success, with each new idea he has winning over all kids everywhere. After the creation of his latest toy, Don Juan Diego (Ricky Martin), creative issues force Gustafson and Jeronicus apart, destroying Jeronicus’s spirit. This turns the lively inventory into an old, broken man (played by Forest Whitaker), while Gustafson (Keegan Michael-Key) becomes a big success. Jeronicus isolates himself in his broken down shop, to the detriment of his estranged daughter Jessica (Anika Noni Rose). Hoping to rekindle something with her father, Jessica sends her daughter Journey (Madalen Mills) to live with her Grandpa J just before the Christmas season, and just before Jeronicus has to close his shop for good.
Netflix looks like it spared no expense in telling Jeronicus’s tale. If you like the old school Hollywood musicals of ornate costuming, Jingle Jangle spares no expense. The music derives from church fare crossed with standard theatre productions, and it works more often than it doesn’t, though I don’t think any of these songs have the belt it out power of Let It Go or How Far I’ll Go. On top of the ornate theatre production is a CGI concoction of gadgets, doohickies, robots, and scenes of pure creation. These contraptions are either fun to look at, adorable to hang around with, or both, like doing Ricky Martin as a don juan toy. For a familly Christmas tale, it helps if there’s something there to dazzle the eyes, and certainly Jingle Jangle has something to excite and dazzle everyone, at least for a few minutes.
That razzle dazzle is necessary, so it can distract you when certain story elements come into play, because Jingle Jangle has several kitchen sinks worth of storylines. When you have a plethora of plot, naturally some of it will work, and some of it will not. In Jingle Jangle, the extremes are pretty far apart. The rough: there’s romantic elements that really don’t fit at all into the story, and grind it to a halt, and Gustafson’s story needed a good once over. The good: Journey/Jeronicus’s bonding, and most importantly, how the movie shows people creating. The CGI concoctions show a world that only the true artists can see: a place that’s simultaneously a part of and outside of our current existence. I wish the movie had stayed on this path most, and used the bond between the characters to inspire creation the whole time, but as is? Jingle Jangle’s story works more often than it doesn’t. Plus, and I can’t stress this enough, it’s got all sorts of fun distractions if the story isn’t working for you.
The ability to invent and create must be a thrill ride when it’s clicking. Jingle Jangle takes that process, puts a holiday and singing around it, and calls it a day. I do have some issues with this movie’s math though: someone says the square root of impossible is me. If you sum “Impossible”s letter values, it’s 119. The square root of 119 is about 11. So really, the square root of impossible should be a word whose letters sum to 11, like: “Bi”? “HC”? “Bah”? ” Daf”? “Bed”? I guess Journey’s right: me fits better in the story, but maybe double check your arithmetic.