Rotten Tomatoes score: 18%
This is a weird movie. It's one of those "origin of Santa Claus" movies, much like Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, but the origin story it proposes is even weirder than that one. Also, in an apparent effort to make the story more relatable, it fast-forwards to the present day about halfway through the movie. I'm not sure that was necessary, but it sort of works. The presence of the Salkinds, the minds behind the Superman series, is obvious in this larger-than-life fantasy.
We first meet Claus (he doesn't obtain the title "Santa" until later) as a benevolent old fellow in an ambiguous far-northern region in an ambiguous medieval century. He makes it his business to shuttle between snow-blanketed villages in the dead of winter delivering gifts to children. One year, he bites off more than he can chew and becomes stranded in a snowstorm. He, his wife Anya, and his reindeer seem to be goners, but they are rescued by a team of diminutive creatures called "Vendegum" (or something), who just refer to themselves as elves.
The elves, including Dudley Moore as Patch, tell Claus that his arrival has been foretold from the dawn of time, and welcome him to their invisible village. Dudley Moore makes a bunch of terrible puns using the word "elf" for "self" (for example, he has a lot of "elf-confidence"), and Claus and Anya get comfortable. They don't really seem to care that the elves have prophesied their coming, and it doesn't bother them that they are going to have to remain here forever. Literally forever, too, because the elves have made them immortal.
Let me come right out and say that the movie's visuals are definitely its strong suit. Everything looks natural, right down to the touch of grey in Claus's whiskers to make you believe they're growing out of his face and not glued on in his dressing room. The movie depicts the North Pole as a harsh environment and the village almost as a bunker against the cold, which is of course realistic, but it's pretty rare in Santa Claus movies. They even seem to acknowledge the existence of polar night.
Unfortunately, I can't be so kind to the plot. There is a bizarre, almost creepy, scene where Burgess Meredith shows up, with two elves carrying his flowing white beard, and anoints Claus as "Santa." This scene seems to go on forever, and I have no idea what purpose it serves. Burgess tells Claus about his toy-delivering mission and his super-powers, but frankly this was a strange way to get that exposition out of the way.
From there, we see a few clips of Santa's doings over the centuries, and in short order we're in the present day. The passage of 600 years seems to have left little mark on the North Pole, where the elves still manufacture hideous primary-colored wooden toys that would probably interest an antique collector more than a 20th-century child. However, Patch has a plan to modernize the workshop by inventing a machine for mass-production. Santa is delighted by its ability to churn out tacky, all-wood tricycles in seconds.
Meanwhile, in New York, two completely uninteresting children are interacting. Homeless, leather-jacketed loner Joe enjoys staring through the windows of a swanky home where rich but lonely Cornelia lives. Joe also likes to stare through the plate-glass window of a local McDonald's, where the diners' food is photographed with almost pornographic focus. I know this is supposed to show how hard-up and hungry Joe is, but it really just looks like a McDonald's commercial. As for Cornelia, her parents are either dead or out of the country, and her only relation is an absent, apparently uncaring uncle.
Santa meets Joe on Christmas Eve while he's in town. Joe has never asked for a Christmas gift because he's "too proud," but Santa takes him along for a sleigh ride and then abandons him in Cornelia's house for the night! What the hell is he thinking?! Why doesn't Santa arrange for this poor kid to be adopted or something?
Shortly after Christmas, the ugly wooden tricycles fall apart, due to Patch's slipshod production methods. In disgrace, Patch flees the North Pole. Also guilty of distributing defective children's toys is a man named B.Z., played by John Lithgow. B.Z. dresses like a 1930s mobster, smokes a cigar in every scene, and openly expresses his desire to rip off children by selling them shoddy, dangerous Christmas toys. This includes a panda doll stuffed with broken glass and razor blades. It's probably the funniest scene in the movie, but it kind of seems plagiarized from that old SNL sketch with Dan Aykroyd.
B.Z. meets Patch, who wants to work with a successful toymaker to prove his worth to Santa. B.Z. agrees to Patch's plan to distribute toys for free, hoping to salvage his company's good name. The toy they choose to manufacture is actually a lollipop that contains the same magic substance that causes Santa's reindeer to fly. This is a big hit the next Christmas, and Santa is depressed to learn that Patch is working for this ludicrous villain caricature.
B.Z. decides to create a new Christmas in March to sell a new line of magic flight-inducing candy. He asks Patch to make the candy more powerful this time, and though reluctant, Patch does it. Somewhere along the line, we discover that B.Z. is Cornelia's heartless uncle, and Cornelia and Joe eavesdrop on a conversation between B.Z. and his assistant, who explains that the magic candy explodes when exposed to heat. B.Z. discovers Joe spying on him and locks the kid up in the toy factory basement. I'm not sure if he intends to kill him or what, but wow, this guy is a real jerk.
Patch comes to Joe's rescue, and a little trinket Joe received from Santa makes Patch believe that Santa still cares about him. At the same moment, Santa has received a letter from Cornelia (letters to Santa are transmitted instantaneously in this movie), and he rides to the rescue with the six of his reindeer who don't have the flu. (The flu? Like the "reindeer flu" from 'Twas the Night? Surely it must be coincidental, because that movie never ripped off anything, least of all The Santa Clause...)
Patch and Joe use a flying-candy-powered car Patch has invented to fly to the North Pole, while Santa and Cornelia catch up to them in the sleigh, worried that the exploding magic candy will destroy the flying car and its passengers. Santa performs some dangerous aerial maneuver that seems to turn them around backwards, but somehow actually speeds them up to rescue Patch and Joe from the exploding car. Santa brings the two kids back to the North Pole. He and Anya decide to adopt Joe (without going through the proper legal channels) and they let Cornelia stay the rest of the year.
What about Cornelia's evil uncle, you ask? Well, not to worry. B.Z. ate some of the magic candy to escape the police (who had discovered his crimes), and it caused him to fly away into outer space. And that's the last scene in the movie. The very last thing you see before the credits is John Lithgow flying into the vacuum of space. Merry Christmas, everyone!
I don't really know what to do with this one. It's definitely the most over-the-top Christmas fantasy movie I can think of, but I kind of liked it. I can't call it great, and I can't really even call it particularly good, but I am comfortable calling it
1. Santa loves all children.
At any rate, he loves all two of the children in this movie.
2. Never play with toys that are filled with broken glass.
You'd be surprised how many kids forget that.
3. Crime doesn't pay.
Those who don't heed this lesson will wind up in the infinite darkness of outer space. In a kids' movie.
It is as if this was written by a mental midget. Who can told me why? Who can told me why? Instead of being a review of a movie I got a dinosaur toy, who can told me why. Im gonna to school with some guy.
ReplyDeleteThis is a horrible review. The movie was great and the scene with the elder elf was very fitting.
ReplyDeleteI am watching the movie now. I enjoy it
ReplyDeleteIt's grossly underrated.
ReplyDelete