Miss Bee's Christmas Movie Review:

The National Tree:  * * (2 stars out of 5)
Meh.  Yawn.  Zzzzzzzzz.

It had possibilities: a cute teenage son, an emotionally frozen, environmentally conscious widowed dad, the pretty young toy store marketer, but then -- yeah.  It stalled, got boring.  It almost felt like the plot was written by one of those computerized screenwriting programs.

One of my pet peeves is when Hollywood takes a relatively attractive teenager and then attaches too much importance to the good looks, the nice body, the great hair.  And then try to turn said teen into a star.  Of course, it's not just teenagers that they do that to -- however --

I imagine that a young teenage girl, might find this boy cute, but as a mom, his disrespect to his dad left me cold.  I found nothing endearing, nothing salvageable about this child.  And what left me even colder? The dad let it go on.  And on. And on.  It is implied that the boy is 17 years or younger and still living at home.  Whatever happened to the old "My House, My Rules" rule?  So the dad really takes the situation in hand hand and caves, letting that child have his way.  In real life, that child should have been doing chores -  so many chores that he'd be too tired to do anything else but eat, sleep and school.

The movie culminates at the lighting of the National Tree on Thanksgiving day in Washington, D.C. -- so I consider this a holiday movie, but definitely NOT a Christmas movie.  It it came on TV, I wouldn't turn the channel, but unless you're a Brat Pack fan and always wondered what happened to Andrew McCarthy, you don't need to be buying this.

From the Box:

"A Father and Son's journey.  A Nation's hope.

When their Sitka Spruce is chosen as the White House Christmas tree, a father (Andrew McCarthy) and his son (Evan Williams, Degrassi: The Next Generation) set off on an exciting cross-country journey to deliver the tree to the nation's capital.  Facing hardship and adventure as they travel America's heartland, father and soon discover a bond they never knew existed and the true meaning of Christmas.  Full of holiday spirit, The National Tree is a heartwarming and inspiring film for the entire family."