Feel good sequel shows no improvement.
“The Ultimate Life” is based on the Jim Stovall novel and is a sequel to the 2006 film “The Ultimate Gift,” which was also based on a novel by Stovall. The film departs greatly from the novel, which takes place almost entirely within a courtroom. As the words on the screen say, the first film followed Jason Stevens (Logan Bartholomew) and his quest for the “ultimate gift” that his grandfather, Red Stevens (James Garner), planned shortly before his death. Through video recordings, Red Stevens (Drew Waters) left Jason with certain tasks to do for an entire year so he could learn important life lessons such as the gift of learning, the gift of money and the gift of love.
The first film ends with him gaining $2 billion of his grandfather’s assets and falling in love with Alexia (Ali Hills), a woman he befriended along with her daughter who died of cancer. Through the “ultimate gift,” Jason seemingly becomes a changed man who learns that what really matters in life is family and love and all that crap.
The new film opens with Jason busily running massive charitable organizations and other positive endeavors to benefit the community and world at large. On top of that, his greedy family is taking him to court to try and obtain as much of his inheritance as possible. Jason fails to notice Alexia, even when she is trying to tell him that she is seriously thinking about taking a job as a nurse in Haiti. When she writes him a letter telling him she has left for Haiti, he goes over to visit his lawyer and friend Ted Hamilton (Bill Cobbs). Ted hands Jason his grandfather’s journal, and the rest of the film follows the young life and early business success of Red Stevens.
Both “Ultimate” films are nothing more than feel-good television movie-level productions that promote a Christian message of giving and loving and so on. That is all perfectly fine, but the films just bash the viewer over the head with their messages. Their earnestness feels hollow and smarmy. The new film has such a sunny disposition that I was groaning and laughing in disbelief.
One of the fatal flaws of the series is that Red and Jason do all of this good work and seem to obtain great wisdom from it, but it all happens either because they are or want to be filthy rich. For the whole film, Red seems to have a one-track mind and be set solely on becoming a billionaire. He is even so ruthless that when he finds out about a business that is failing because 11 of its workers were killed in an explosion, he swoops down and buys it for much less than it is worth.
But the film does not stop and decry this inhumane dealing. No, it is just smart business that allows good ol’ Red to realize his dream of becoming a billionaire. And because of the way his children act in the first film, they must turn out lazy, money-grabbing leaches who only care about mooching money from their father. He fails as a father. The film never truly confronts that failure or his and his children’s greed, which would have been a more interesting story.
Basically, the film is dishing out life lessons, but the characters only learn them because they have deep pockets. For a film that praises family and love, all of the main characters come across as only caring about themselves and making themselves feel better about their wealth by tossing money at less fortunate people. Red does give a significant gift to his friend Ted when he is involved in a car accident, but that one act of kindness does not right all of his past or his future failings. It is scary that Jason seems to have learned Red’s lessons about family and life, but Red never learned them himself.