THE NAUGHTY NINE

Here is our answer up front. THE NAUGHTY NINE is a good-looking piece of work — magical settings, outstanding costumes, festive music, and a story that clearly had potential. On craft alone, it's a capable film.

But Disney has once again chosen to serve a woke god at its audience's expense. The movie is inundated with a divisive, politically correct message: one child is transgender, another has two "gay dads," and the whole cast spends nearly the entire runtime lying, stealing, seeking revenge, and disrespecting everyone around them. The children do try to make things right at the end, which remits some of the offenses — but by then the characters are simply too naughty for you to care.

So our counsel is plain. If you're looking for a Christmas story that draws your family together in the traditional way, this one fragments rather than unites. Skip it, and reach for something that celebrates the season instead.

Andy is a lying, manipulative, selfish middle-schooler who's indignant to discover he's landed on Santa's Naughty List — and that Christmas hasn't gone his way.

So he plots revenge. Andy recruits eight other Naughty List kids to fly to the North Pole and steal the wishlist toys they feel entitled to. He even talks his Nice List sister into joining the scheme. Their ragtag team dodges emergency landings and perilous puzzles on the way to Santa's Toy Shop. But somewhere along the road, Andy's conscience starts to catch up with him.

Three stars, and here's what they buy. On the technical side, THE NAUGHTY NINE delivers. The settings are genuinely magical, the costumes are outstanding — one is even a small plot point — and the music is festive enough to carry a Christmas party sequence with real elves, complete with music and dancing.

The problem isn't the polish. It's that the film asks you to spend eighty-plus minutes with children who are unlikeable by design. Andy doesn't have his change of heart until the last possible moment, and the story is so saturated with its agenda that the warmth never arrives. The result is a well-crafted movie you won't want to sit through. Craft got the stars; the storytelling squandered them.

At its surface, THE NAUGHTY NINE gestures at a light morality play about doing the right thing. Santa tells the children to try to be good, and removes them from the Naughty List because they helped friends in trouble. There are even light references to Christmas.

But the season's true center is missing. There's no mention of the reason for the season — no Christ, and not even any "Christmas Spirit." What fills the gap is what the source calls a divisive, politically correct false ideology: the woke agenda. One child is transgender — a nine-year-old boy who dresses feminine, wears makeup, and calls another boy a "hottie." Another child has two homosexual "fathers." Around all of it swirls lying, deceit, stealing, revenge, greed, and dysfunctional family portrayals, with children serving as bad role models for most of the runtime.

The heart of the story is entitlement — children convinced they're owed the best toys and willing to steal to get them. That's a longing the gospel answers differently. The real gift of Christmas was never earned by the nice or seized by the naughty; it was given freely. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).

Disney wrapped this one in beautiful costumes, magical sets, and festive music — real craft, no question. But it fills that pretty package with a divisive agenda and a cast of children too naughty to root for, and it forgets the reason for the season entirely. So our answer stands: skip it. For a Christmas movie that actually draws your family together, start with our latest family-friendly picks.