YMMV / I'll Be Home for Christmas

• Awesome Music: N Sync's "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" is an undeniable favorite listen at Christmastime and its association with this movie definitely doesn’t hurt that either.
• Cult Classic: While both a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release, it still remains a dedicated favorite around Christmastime for a few people here and there.
• Designated Hero: Jake is motivated to go home for Christmas not because he wants to be with his family (which is trying to piece itself back together since his mother died and their father remarried), not to be with his girlfriend, but because he's promised a Porsche if he gets home by Christmas dinner. Not only does he have to be bribed to spend Christmas with his family, but in his efforts to get there he steals from, lies to, and manipulates numerous good-hearted people around him. Also, the reason he's stuck in the Santa suit is a revenge prank from three jocks that paid him to get someone to help them cheat on their final exams. Even when he demonstrates his Jerk with a Heart of Gold traits later in the film as his Character Development kicks in, Jake is not a very likable person.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The N Sync song in the end credits when Jessica Biel would years later marry Justin Timberlake.
• Moral Event Horizon: While Eddie wrecking his own friends' chances at cheating on their midterms is bad enough as it is, the fact that he has Jake stranded in the desert with absolutely nothing and before that, locks Ian in his own locker for what could be the entirety of Christmas break is enough to display how unsympathetic he’s clearly supposed to be.
• The Scrappy: Because Jake is such a big Jerkass and Designated Hero, you'd be hard pressed to find people who liked the character.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Jake; again, the only reason he's going home for Christmas is because his family bribed him with a car, the central conflict of the film is him making it home on time to get it, and he cons good people in his efforts to get home. While he does make it a point to basically say that he thought his widowed father remarried too soon after his mother passed too, he's even told he shouldn't blame his new stepmother for that. Not hard to see why even though he turns the car down at the end and is just happy to be home with his family, it still rings hollow and feels like it didn't impact things the way it should.