Fans of Austin Powers and gently acerbic Christmas comedies rejoice: Elizabeth Hurley has made three of them in the space of two years. If you were wondering which one to stick on this festive season, then look no further. Here is our definitive – and scientific – ranking of director Philippe Martinez’s Hurleyverse.
Father Christmas Is Back is weird. Deliberately so, I hasten to add. What else can one say about a festive comedy where Caroline Quentin and John Cleese have sex while impersonating a pair of bulls? Or where Elizabeth Hurley asks Nathalie Cox to decapitate a guinea pig?
Slipping quietly onto Netflix in 2021, Hurley and writer/director Philippe Martinez’s first outing was a surprisingly unconventional Christmas flick with plenty of decent gags, but not necessarily the sort of thing you’d expect to spawn a cinematic universe. The creative team must have had a blast making it though, because this year they’ve mostly reunited to make two thematically similar follow-ups: a direct sequel (Christmas In Paradise) and an original story (Christmas In The Caribbean).
After spending the previous outing specifically dreaming of Christmas in the Bahamas, it’s nice to see that both of Philippe Martinez’s 2022 follow-ups very deliberately don’t happen there. Instead, Christmas In Paradise is pulling a Downton Abbey: A New Era and jetting off a couple of hundred miles away to the Caribbean. Christmas In The Caribbean also takes place in the Caribbean, but is entirely unrelated to the other two (despite sharing a director, a writer, a producer, the main cast and most of a name). Do try to keep up.
Delicate thread-on-a-corkboard plot entanglements aside, the question on everyone’s lips right now is which of these members of the MCU (Martinez Christo-matic Universe) comes out on top. To that end, we’ve decided to rank every film based on some carefully-chosen criteria. No fighting in the comments, please!
Watchability
It’s a slam-dunk for Father Christmas Is Back, I’m afraid. It’s available on UK Netflix right now, while Christmas In The Caribbean arrives on streaming next week. Christmas In Paradise, while already available in the States, doesn’t even have a UK release date yet. It does have a trailer though, which is absolutely YouTube-able at your earliest convenience.
Is Caroline Quentin in it?
For Father Christmas Is Back and Christmas In The Caribbean, yes, and she’s great. For Christmas In Paradise, no, but it does have Billy Ray Cyrus for some reason. Sadly, Billy’s musical talents just can’t compete with the neo-national treasure status of the Jonathan Creek star, and so the others are joint winners here, perhaps with Caribbean slightly ahead because she’s got more screen time.
Does it Predict the Future?
In 2021’s Father Christmas Is Back, April Bowlby’s character says the Christmas family ‘live like Prince Charles and Queen Camilla.’ Christmas In The Caribbean apparently makes no effort to predict the future with even 50% accuracy, though I suppose we’ll have to wait until this time next year to know for sure.
Meanwhile, in the trailer for Christmas In Paradise, Elizabeth Hurley incorrectly predicts “we are going to have the most peaceful Christmas this year,” a premonition instantly disproven when her father (Kelsey Grammar) disappears to a Caribbean island. You just can’t get the (psychic) staff these days.
Best Use of Naomi Frederick’s Hair
One of the best jokes in Father Christmas Is Back involves Naomi Frederick’s Beatles-obsessed character’s hair, which is perfectly styled after the band’s pre-Sgt Peppers look. Tragically, the trailer for Christmas In Paradise reveals Naomi Frederick has changed her locks to something a little more ordinary. And Christmas In The Caribbean doesn’t have any Naomi Frederick in it at all, let alone her hair. Another case of the original clearly surpassing what comes after.
Most Meritocratic
Father Christmas Is Back gets really scuppered by this one. The setting of the first film is Kris Marshall’s character’s ancestral country home. It’s a lovely building, and April Bowlby seems very happy to be spending Christmas in ‘a castle.’
Unfortunately, Marshall himself did nothing to earn his place there, and so the award must go to Christmas In The Caribbean, the protagonist of which earns enough money as a London theatre critic to pay for herself and two friends to take a last-minute trip to a tropical island two days before Christmas Eve. Hooray for meritocracy!
The ‘Kubrick Stare’ Award for Great Eye Acting
It’s a tie! Aside from Elizabeth Hurley, the only actor to have a major role in all three films in the franchise is Juno Eclipse herself, Nathalie Cox, and her eyes can be very scary – in an entertainingly manic sort of way. She’s also just very fun to watch in general, and without her seemingly unlimited energy the Philippe Martinez oeuvre would be a far grimmer place. Bonus points also go to Hurley for the little eye ‘flexes’ she does sometimes – see if you can spot them.
Does it ‘Blow up Christmas’?
Spoiler alert for Father Christmas Is Back, here, as roughly an hour in April Bowlby’s antics result in an explosive power-cut that leads to the pre-prepared Christmas dinner being eaten by foxes. That surely knocks off a few marks on the Ho-Ho-Hometer. Since both of the 2022 offerings take place near the equator, with plenty of warmth and natural daylight, a power-cut would never have the same catastrophic effect, and so they are crowned joint-winners in this category.
The Verdict
It’s a close-run thing, but, as it stands, Father Christmas Is Back takes to the top of the podium almost unopposed. But don’t fret, Elizabeth Hurley fans: there’s always next year. Perhaps Christmas In The Caribbean will correctly predict Nathalie Cox’s meteoric rise as a travel influencer, or Christmas In Paradise will debut straight at the top of the UK Netflix charts. If either happens, you can be assured our top team will be back to adjust the ranking accordingly.
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