This is the subversive Christmas special you'd expect from Bill Murray.
It's not a FILM, with a PLOT, like so many (millenials?) are complaining about. Maybe they're too young to remember what an old-timey Christmas special was. It was some super-annuated celebrity picking up a cheque filming a Christmas special in mid-summer with the help of some Hollywood pals.
But there are also a bunch of alleged Bill Murray fans complaining they wanted to see him in Ghostbusters or Groundhog Day character. What's the matter with you people? If you want to see Murray in those characters, rent those movies.
The hint is right in the title - a Very Murray Christmas. Right? Bill Murray takes the Christmas special template, drains out the saccharine and injects his B-flat take on Christmas. Some pals come along for the ride but nobody is really who they seem to be. Is that Amy Poehler noted comedian or is she a character. Wiffled-spined Michael Cera is actually a wanna-be super agent. The waiters are a music group. The waitress is stunning and talented Jenny Lewis. And Miley Cyrus, who I wouldn't jump in to save if she was drowning in my bathtub, delivers a rendition of Silent Night that will have you re-evaluating all you thought you knew, loved and hated about that song.
This is a Chistmas special for people who love Christmas once, probably hate it now but wished they still loved it, are driven to madness by shtty mall Christmas music, and maybe wouldn't mind being snowed in at a NY hotel bar with a guy like Paul Shaffer playing the piano while randoms join in and cheer each other by singing.
As a guy who thinks the original Grinch cartoon is the greatest Christmas special ever shown on TV, and who thinks It's a Wonderful Life is Hollywood at its most crass, I will watch A Very Murray Christmas every December from now on, assuming I'm willing to cough up for Netflix.
