Reviews

When I saw the first Santa Clause at the age of 10 it had set the standard for Christmas movies for me. Nearly a decade later I could understand why they brought out a sequel - Disney is no longer doing a feature film per summer and they need to pay rent. I saw it anyway and it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The third film I went to see with my girlfriend at a dollar theater and still walked out feeling like I wasted two bucks.

Tim Allen didn't appear to give a damn about this movie other than that it's going to pay his cell phone bills for the next three months. Martin Short, as someone else had mentioned, is an acquired taste -- a taste that I do not care for and actually found somewhat annoying. I couldn't believe the original Neil, Laura, and Charlie were brought back though I felt they were used as filler characters more than anything. They didn't have any kind of situation or purpose in the movie other than to become victims of Jack Frost's Polar Ice breath. Santa Claus seemed to enjoy the company of his ex-wife much more so than his current one. The omission of Bernard is inexcusable. The "legendary characters" was a bit much and didn't add to the story, especially the Easter Bunny's horrible 70's Wookie costume. The kids playing the elves didn't even look thrilled to be there, regardless of who was playing Santa. The set from the first movie was huge -- outside looked like a dark, expansive glacier and indoors was a gigantic toy workshop. In this movie the outdoor set looked more like the sunny, bubbly Dr. Seuss Land at Islands of Adventure, and anything indoors was inconceivably tiny and elf-like, completely ignoring the fact that the "head elf", Santa, is a full-sized man.

The special effects were far worse than the first movie 12 years ago. In the first movie, the producer actually cared about the outcome and therefore sunk a large sum of money into the best special effects at the time. SC3 showcases every possible SFX shortcut. The CGI reindeer were pathetic -- the cartoony Scooby Doo eyes were just stupid. Just goes to show you that the art of puppeteering is gone for good. The "magic snow globe" looked like a novelty souvenir bought at a convenience store. Santa's sleigh looked like a poorly-built plywood prop. A lot of the sound effects were textbook cartoon fare...for a cartoon made 50 years ago. These kinds of details do not go unnoticed.

The filmmakers even had the audacity to use actual cut-scenes from the first movie - about 90 seconds worth - which to me is pretty tacky; seems like they just needed some more filler.

The entire movie is supposed to be a story being told by Mrs. Claus to her classroom but the introduction was so short I forgot all about that. I thought the movie was ending just as it cut back to the classroom with about 3 more minutes of movie. I'm glad I stayed for the Buddy Claus scene though - the generic baby with a red scarf on his head was the star of this scene.

This movie was so dumbed down it's unbelievable. Seeing the first movie at the young age I did of course I wasn't going to understand some of the adult humor. As I grew up, though, it was a lot of fun to understand some of the jokes that I had missed as a kid, which is what's so appealing about that movie. In SC3, if a 6 year-old fails to understand something it's because he's had some kind of unfortunate mental handicap.

The storyline's been described so many times by other members it's not worth it for me to go into. What I haven't seen anybody mention, however, is that this is a Christmas movie featuring Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and there is barely any mention of delivering toys to kids, much less any kind of action taken in preparation to do so. It's small, I know, but again it's the details.

Just chalk it up as another crappy Disney sequel.