[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
It was a foregone conclusion that there must be a sequel to Three Wise Men and a Baby, and two years and two strikes later, here we are, with Three Wiser Men and a Little Boy hoping to strike Christmas gold again Saturday night.
In the world of the Brenners, five years have passed, and Thomas (Miles Marthaller), the baby boy who made men out of the Brenner brothers, is now a kindergartner, inadvertently tasked once again with saving them from themselves after they regress back to the shenanigans behavior they were guilty of in the first film. This time around, the boys are called upon to save young Thomas’s Christmas play when they accidentally crash and burn the sets and costumes, poison its young star, and send the director running from the building. After an all-too-familiar summons to the principal’s office, their marching orders are clear — they broke, they bought it, and it’s on them to make the play happen.
Truth be told, it’s a welcome distraction as Thomas’s now-official dad Luke (Andrew Walker) has assumed the reins of the firehouse as its chief, but is feeling less a fireman in his prime than an administrator and second-string observer; Stefan (Paul Campbell) has moved on from pet therapy to human therapy and is promoting his new self-help book, but it’s not going as well as he hoped; and Taylor (Tyler Hynes) has branched out on his own as a game designer, also with less-than-great results.
Further rattling their already fragile psyches, their mom, Barbara (Margaret Colin). decides the Christmas season is the perfect time to introduce them to her not-exactly-new bae, Pastor Roy (Christopher Shyer), making the boys’ regression complete as it immediately churns up all their trauma about their dad and makes them question where they fit amid the new man in her life. It’s a lot.
Thankfully, the triumvirate production team responsible for the first one — director Terry Ingram and writers Campbell and Kimberley Sustad are back, along with a third writer, Russell Hainline, who wrote Netflix’s white-hot Hot Frosty. The trio wrote the script based on Campbell and Sustad’s story. Also back are Fiona Vroom as Stefan’s sweetie, Susie; Nicole Major as Luke’s now-wife, Sophie; and Matt Hamiltn as the Brenners’ former nemesis and now frenemy Mark Laclark.
Taylor’s love interest this time is Caroline, the play’s volunteer pianist, who’s his kindred spirit in the way he wanders through life, not to mention their shared love of an emotional support candy cane. Erin Karpluk is fantastic in the role, and she and Hynes have zero funsies together. But seriously, I hope somebody at Hallmark is already working on something for them, because they are that good together.
If you didn’t partake of the first Three Wise Men film, fear not, because the sequel stands on its own, and while there are a handful of wink-nod callbacks, you will not be made to feel like you missed out on the joke. That said, if you have time to check out the OG, it will only make this one that much sweeter.
The comedy is absolutely broad and delightfully ridiculous, but there are also very sweet moments of realization and concession as the boys recognize that their mom is owed a debt of happiness and its coming due in a lovely way doesn’t diminish her relationship with them, that in can actually help their entire family finally heal. So glad they all came back. And as more than one of the crew told me back when we spoke abut the first film — they wouldn’t make another one unless there was a good story to tell. They found one.
When I spoke to Andrew Walker last week about Jingle Bell Run, he talked about why the second time around with the Brenners was so sweet, and worth the wait. “Well, it’s been three years since we shot it, but two years since it aired. We knew it was lingering, that the potential of us doing another movie together was there. The script originally came to me about a year and a half ago. And when I read it, I immediately thought this potentially could have the possibility of being a bigger movie and a quote unquote better movie than the first one,” he recalls.
“You don’t get an opportunity outside of the mystery wheels and whatnot to revisit a character and to revisit Luke Brenner and to be with the guys again was just exactly what you people would think it would be — pandemonium. There are certain people who you work with them and they’re your creative muses, and Tyler and Paul bring something out in me, and there’s a professionalism and an expectation and a support that we all have and a respect that we all have each other as actors and friends.”
Walker also feels a particular kinship to Luke, and appreciated the similarity to his character in Jingle Bell Run, where he was a past-his-prime former hockey phenom learning to live with a reframed sense of identity. “I feel like Luke is probably the closest version of who I am as a person. And sometimes that can be hard to play, because there are so many different connective bits and pieces of who you are. And it’s vulnerable. It’s a vulnerable place to live in,” he shares.
“We’re dealing with my mom’s new boyfriend, Pastor Roy, who is a phenomenal guy. And there’s nothing wrong with him, but he’s super threatening to all of us. And especially Luke. Luke is the man of the house. He always has been doing things for his mother. That’s who he is. And now Pastor Roy comes in and gets a bigger Christmas tree. He puts up the lights better than I do. He puts a way more love and attention into all these things than Luke has ever done, which is very threatening.”
“Meanwhile, I’m the fire chief now. I’m not a just a firefighter anymore. I moving up in the world [with] all the responsibilities. But now there’s aches and pains that come with that, with getting older. And I’m not the young buck that I used to be. And so I’ve kind of lost that allure.”
Three Wiser Men and a Boy premieres Saturday, November 23rd, at 8 pm/7c on Hallmark Channel and streaming on various outlets in the US and W Network in Canada. You can catch the first film at 6 pm/5c or streaming now on Hallmark+. Here are a few sneak peeks of the new film. [Updated 12/22/24 — an extended cut of the film is now streaming on Hallmark+.]
Photos courtesy of Bettina Strauss and Ricardo Hubbs/Hallmark Media; video courtesy of Hallmark Media.
