Everybody has their own personal guilty Pleasure holiday movie they like to put out every year, even if despite the fact that they are not that impressive, to begin with. For me and many others, this is the case with Tim Allen’s take on playing the big red man himself in the 1994 live-action Disney movie The Santa Clause.
Tim Allen plays Scott Calvin, a toy executive businessman who has been divorced by his ex-wife and forced to spend Christmas with his 6-year-old son Charlie. Charlie is not at all thrilled with the idea and when they both try to get some sleep they suddenly hear a noise on the roof and discover its Santa Claus. When Scott tries to make contact with him, Santa slips off the roof and presumably dies (yep, it’s that kind of movie). Through a few instructions and magical shenanigans, Scott with the encouragement of Charlie, reluctantly delivers the rest of the presents with Scott taking on the role of Santa Claus. The father-son duo ends up at the north pole and gets to see the magical world of Santa’s Village with the elves running all over the place. One of the elves named Bernard, explains to Scott that he’s the new Santa and he has fallen under the rule called the Santa Clause. Scott wakes up in his own house thinking its all a dream, but during the following months, he starts ganging weight and growing a beard which starts to concern Scotts ex-wife and wonders if Charlie being with his dad is the best thing for his well being.
The film does start out kinda slow with establishing characters and building up to the call of adventure. It basically starts out as your typical live action family movie with a divorced father who is not very bright and an ex-wife who is strict in her personality. I mean I get it that they want to start out introducing things but I found that part of the movie to be kinda boring and sometimes a little unbearable. However, once Santa falls off the roof, things really start to get better and it becomes the imaginative and hilarious movie that will have your inner child, jumping up and down with the Christmas spirit. I really like the set designs of the north pole and I find it to be an interesting twist that they used kids to play the elves instead of little people. Some of the ideas they have are very cool I especially like when Scott Calvin is under the Santa Clause and weird hilarious things start happening with him.
However, it’s not a perfect movie as it does come under some of the cliches and tired tropes that make up a lot of live-action family Christmas movies. I did find that when the movie is not focused on its imaginative world-building and creative concepts can feel rather boring and it can slow the movie down from time to time. Charlie is an okay child actor and outside of the third act scene, he does a lot of the typical 90’s kid acting stuff that really is nothing new. Still, If you can make it past some of the movie’s awkward moments as I could, I think you might find something that may not be perfect in storytelling, but still rings true in spirit and tone.
The Santa Clause is a decent Christmas movie with its Imaginative premise and its impressive set designs. I would still recommend checking it out. Sure it does have its tired and cliched traditional live-action family movie moments and it can get a little Hallmarky, but I think the best parts of the movie left me thinking like a kid again and I hope that everyone who sits down to watch this movie will feel the same way.
(Final Grade B-)