Scoot & Kassie’s Christmas Adventure Review

“Honey, sometimes the things we love the most are taken from us way too soon.”

After moving to a new town, a 10-year-old girl rescues a badly wounded dog and nurses him back to health. After struggling to make friends, she ends up wowing the church pastor, who puts her in charge of the resort town’s choir and concert.

Meanwhile. a pair of robbers, who were responsible for injuring the dog, are preparing to steal all the money the kids are collecting for charity from the bank. It’s the 2013 film “Scoot & Kassie’s Christmas Adventure” (original title: “K-9 Adventures: A Christmas Tale”).

‘Twas “Scoot & Kassie’s Christmas Adventure”

Our tale begins with a police dog named Jake (and his much slower human partner) chasing after two robbers – Marv (Taylor Negron) and “Buzz” (Jake Suazo). Just as Jake is about to nab them, the German Shepherd gets caught in some barbed wire attached to a log.

After taunting the dog, Marv tosses that log into the river, and Jake gets pulled into the river. Which left us wondering: OMG is the dog dead???!!! Brutal start to a movie!

We then meet Paul Stevenson (Luke Perry, R.I.P.) and his two daughters – Kassie (Ariana Bagley) and Esther (Camrey Bagley Fox) though it oddly takes about 20 minutes just to find out Paul’s name for the first time. They’re driving to their new town and see their new school and the bank where he will work.

We then follow the sad adventures of poor wounded Jake, as he is alive but hurt, sad, and dirty. Kassie happens upon the dog after bringing her father lunch at the bank (and meeting the former Marv, now a security guard named “Gary”).

Kassie brings the dog home in a wagon and, with Esther’s help, gets him up to Kassie’s room. She cleans, feeds, and sings to him (and, yes, it’s a little pitchy, dawg). She names him Scoot.

Meanwhile, a stressed out Pastor Bailey (Adam Johnson) is ready to give up on the kids’ choir (“they’re so bad,” he says), and after hearing Kassie critique them, he decides to make her the new assistant. But since he never does anything again, “assistant” here means she literally does everything. All the members of the choir are in her class and most are pretty bad singers, aside from Rachel (Lillian Hepler), the snobby rich girl.

To get the choir ready, she takes them around the neighborhood to sing Christmas carols at houses, which also helps the kids raise money for the Toys for Tots charity drive at her father’s bank. During a trip to the bank, Scoot sees “Gary” through a window, gets inside, and barks at him.

Kassie is now forced to reveal that she’s been taking care of the dog (Paul also noticed she was using his tie as a leash). After some heated debate about the creepiness of “Gary”, Paul decides to let Kassie keep Scoot.

Meanwhile, the kids continue filling the glass box with money at the bank – and the robbers take notice. As they discuss their big score on the phone, one of the kids overhears them. The kids decide they need to stop the robbery (police, adults, who needs ’em, right?).

With an arsenal of mostly Nerf guns and water balloons, they thwart the robbers, but Marv snatches Kassie and drives off with her in a truck. She kicks him, forcing him to stop so she can escape, which gives Scoot the chance to finally get his revenge. Except, instead, Marv hits Scoot with the baseball bat!

OK, seriously? This poor dog!

Paul arrives just past the nick of time and punches out Marv. At the veterinarian office, the kids pray for the injured dog, who miraculously survives. A news report on the robbery alerts Officer Riley (James Andrews) about his missing partner. So Riley takes Jake/Scoot back, making the Stevensons sad.

But Jake isn’t happy being Jake, or Officer Riley’s partner anymore. And can you blame him?

But it ends up becoming the best Christmas ever for Kassie because:

• It snows.
• She gets Scoot back.
• Rachel gives Kassie the spotlight, so she can sing the song her mom wrote at the church concert.

Our Review: “Scoot & Kassie’s Christmas Adventure”

Heber Valley is missing the Christmas spirit. There’s no snow. The town is broke. And the Toys for Tots box is empty of donations.

By the end of this tale of sacrifice, redemption, and love, all of these issues are nicely, if predictably, resolved.

Kassie’s leadership role in the choir, thanks in large part to her friendship with Scoot, erases her own rough start as the new kid in town.

She helps bring Christmas songs to the town, which brings in much-needed donations. Scoot, Kassie, and her friends save that money a second time from a pair of Grinches.

Plus it finally snows just in time to (hopefully) save the resort town. And everyone gets to celebrate at the concert.

🐕 The Nice List 👧🏻

💰 Feels Like “Home Alone” 🔫

The bungling bank robbers very much feel like a tribute to the “Home Alone” – in a good way.

Is it just a coincidence there’s a robber named Marv in both movies?

Side note: The slow-motion walking sequence with the choir all suited up and ready for action is one of the highlight visuals of the entire film.

🏦 Luke Perry (Gone Too Soon!) 🥡

Perry did a good acting job, with quite a few nice parental moments for Paul, including the sweet Chinese food scene in the sheet fort.

There were also a couple of nice scenes in which Paul talks to his dead wife. We can only deduce that she died less than three years ago, since he isn’t yet dating. Right, Hallmark? 😉

😂 You’ll Laugh… 😂

If you have an appreciation for street sign humor. Did you see the one early in the movie that said: Doesn’t go anywhere!

There are also some funny sister moments.

Esther’s reaction to Scoot tearing up Kassie’s room was pretty great (“You’re dead”), especially considering Paul hadn’t found out about Scoot’s presence in the house yet. Kassie’s excuse for the state of the room, that she couldn’t find anything to wear, was also pretty good.

😢 You’ll Cry… 😢

When:

• Scoot gets hit with the bat. 😭
• The kids say prayers for the dog. 😭
• Officer Riley takes the dog away from Kassie. 😭

👎 The Naughty List 👎

⛪ That Concert 🎵

OK, that final song is way over the top. When did they have time between stopping the bank robbery and celebrating Christmas to choreograph this elaborate performance with every kid in town?

We had dancing, singing in unison, stunts. How?

Also, if you’re pained by bad singing by children, you may want to fast forward through this scene entirely.

👮🏼‍♀️ I Say Dialogue, Goodbye 👮🏻‍♂️

Some of the conversation seemed rushed and inauthentic. Rather than feeling conversational, it seemed like it was there only for the sake of exposition.

The biggest offender came near the end of the movie when the police officers return Scoot. Officer Blaine (Cate Allen) says she expects Scoot to be ready to work as soon as he’s rested up. She says thanks and abruptly exits the house.

🎶 Kassie & the Choir 🎶

First off, the pastor putting Kassie in charge of the choir was just ridiculous.

But it was equally hard to accept the choir following Kassie as easily as they did. For one, she’s the new kid in town. For another, she’s 10. And her singing wasn’t all that amazing. #sorrynotsorry

❄️ That Christmas Feeling: Have You Seen Me? 🎁

Although we believe they purposefully didn’t make it look super Christmasy. As noted earlier, the Christmas spirit was missing because of the lack of snow, and the decorated but empty donation box at the bank.

The caroling helped, but it wasn’t until the end that it really started to feel like Christmas, with the presents, snow, and celebration.

🙅 The WORST List 🙅

😲 You’ll Cringe… 😲

At the lack of adult supervision.

The kids sing a song about how they can do anything. And in this movie, they really have to because nobody is helping these kids.

They run their own choir. Raise their own money. Coordinate their own concert. And even thwart bank robbers!

Paul not knowing where her daughter is going or what she’s doing most of the time is just silly.

At much of the acting.

It’s pretty bad. Kassie is a bit robotic; the pastor is terrible. The robbers were over-the-top aiming for comical but missing much of the time. (Also, the stuff Marv yelled after hitting the dog with the bat was nonsensical and weird.)

😡 You’ll Yell at TV… 😡

In that early scene of the movie where the poor dog is wrapped in barbed wire and you think he’s going to drown in the river.

And then when the dog gets hit with the baseball bat! Seriously?