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Parents' Guide to

Prancer: A Christmas Tale

By Alistair Lawrence, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 8+

Family festive drama has mild language, comic violence.

Movie PG 2022 102 minutes
Prancer: A Christmas Tale movie poster

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 16+

Based on 1 parent review

age 16+

Very Disappointing

This movie had much promise but little delivery. The language was terrible. We tried to watch as a family Christmas movie. We made it about 20 minutes. Attitudes were terrible, and language was appealing. Very disappointing.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1 ):
Kids say (2 ):

A belated threequel in the Prancer movie series, this outing is a low-stakes, feel-good family drama for the holidays that manages to spin a decent odd-couple story out of a pretty vague premise. In Prancer: A Christmas Tale, veteran Cromwell has no trouble giving everyone the short shrift as cantankerous Bud, before the persistence of his visiting 10-year-old British granddaughter, Gloria, provides him with a companion with whom he can follow the trail of the titular magical reindeer. Thankfully, Cromwell and Ewart's on-screen chemistry helps them make easy work of a lightweight script and keeps things watchable.

The story is less consistent and at times feels more like a scenic sleigh ride. Half Christmas fairy tale and half family drama. The rocky relationship between Gloria's parents and Bud's constant clashes with his two adult children comes and goes before being resolved a bit too neatly. While Bud and Gloria's pursuit of Prancer relies on a lot of exposition. A stronger villain would've made things more interesting, as would've making Gloria's uncle Gerald (Aaron McCusker) a bit more devious. But anyone looking for some throwaway fun to help the turkey go down could do worse than add this to their Christmas watch list.

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