Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey recently aired on Netflix. The new film was released on Nov. 13, 2020 and has had some mixed ratings from at home viewers. The Netflix original is classified as a Christmas Musical all about saving familial ties.

The film starts off with Jeronocus Jangle, an inventor and toy maker, on the verge of his best invention to date. The invention is a doll in which he planned on mass producing for everyone to enjoy. The fully functioning, human-like doll tells Jeronocus’ apprentice, Gustafsus, to take him and Jeronocus’ book of ideas to use as his own. The young, aspiring inventor listens, and the doll and Jeronocus lose everything he ever worked towards.  

Gustafsus has become a famous inventor 30 years later, and Jeronocus owns a failed shop. After Jeronocus was threatened to lose his shop, he began working on his first invention in 30 years alongside his granddaughter, Journey. Gustafson, now out of ideas for inventions, hears about this new invention and makes his new goal to steal this new one and call it his own. 

 The movie is told by an older Journey to her grandchildren, as she explains the crazy Christmas she experienced in her youth. Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey stars Forest Whitaker (Jeronocus Jangle), Madalen Mills (Journey), and Keegan- Kelly Key(Gustafson), all smaller actors and Madelen Mills first movie. The musical was written and directed by David E. Talbert. Talbert is fairly new to movies, as his first one, titled First Sunday, was released in 2007. Since 2007, Talbert has released three christmas movies—Jingle Jangle being third. 

As excited as I was for the release of Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, I was overall let down by the plot.The storyline did not make a lot of sense and was hard to keep up with. On top of that, it was predictable and became repetitive. The Netflix original was one of the only new Holiday movies released this year and did not live up to the expectation I had hoped for. The confusing plot and message was poorly executed throughout. On the plus side, the soundtrack was surprisingly catchy and made the two hours enjoyable to some degree. While the movie could’ve been better made in my opinion, I think kids would still like watching it and find it enjoyable.