The major theme has to do with the kid's father and his friends. Unfortunately, this movie suffers from having so little set up to pay off those themes. It's about trying to get an NES. There's like only one scene where the friends are actually working together. There's also very little set up with the father to make how it ends work. There's a lot of potential to make the ending emotional and heart-warming but after reaching the end you wish it tried harder to make the payoff more impactful than it was.
It's a shame because this could've been a new generation's Christmas Story (sounds sacrilegious, I know) but they just didn't go hard enough.
It's a shame because this could've been a new generation's Christmas Story (sounds sacrilegious, I know) but they just didn't go hard enough.