The Santa Clause (1994)

Tim Allen is a marvelous comic presence. But this all belongs to the producers and creators of this film. The script allows for an explanation why Allen becomes Santa Claus. He inadvertently causes the old guy to fall off the roof and the "clause" in the contract forces him to take over the job. He must put on the suit. What happens after this is the integration of Allen into the Santa Claus routine. He begins to get chubby. He gets rosy cheeks. The whole nine yards. He is taken to the North Pole after learning to drive the sleigh. He gets good at distributing presents. The hang up is parental rights to his son, Charley. Judge Reinholdt is the humorless new husband of Allen's former wife. The crazier Allen appears, the more it plays into Charley being kept from his father. An elf named Bernard (who has a Bronx accent) is Allen's right hand man, and he orchestrates things the way he wants them.

In a way, Tim Allen makes the perfect, unassuming guy to be whisked away in a frenzy of holiday magic, and be told that he's next in line to become the jolly dude in the red suit. Allen always has an affable, breezy carelessness to him, like he was some suburban dad on the way to pick up his kids from hockey practice one day and happened to wander onto a movie set. The filmmakers saw his bewilderment, mistook him for an actor, and he's been putting out charming, occasionally decent fare ever since. In The Santa Clause, he really does play a suburban dad, the typically divorced kind. Scott Calvin is his name (get it?;) and his life is a bit of a mess following his split up with wife Wendy Crewson. She's together with a hotshot doctor now, making him bristly. I would get a bit up in arms if my wife took up with Judge friggin Reinhold too. So he spends Christmas with his son (Eric Lloyd) accidentally burning their turkey and ending up at Denny's for their Christmas feat, with all the other recently divorced dads. Things are mopey until an outright misunderstanding causes Scott to cause the death of Santa Claus (!) and spur on his recruit,net for the job. Most of the fun of the film is Allen's good natured disbelief upon reaching the North Pole and seeing inch of real love elves. Pretty soon his waistline balloons, snowy facial hair sprouts and it becomes clear that he really is destined to be the big guy. It's a slight, lighthearted flick that's perfect for kids, with really funny work from elves played by David Krumholtz and Paige Tanada, and a small, sly appearance from Peter Boyle. Allen steals the show, though, and is wonderful. As far as the sequels go, the second is pleasant overkill, anime yet to see the third with Martin Short as Jack 'Sonic The Hedgehog' Frost. I'm in no rush. This ones a nice dose of holiday cheer, though, and being a 90's movie, still holds up today.

I know what you're thinking. What?! You're giving "The Santa Clause" a bad review? How could you?! My question to you is, have you actually seen this movie, and thought about what it really is? Because if you did, you'd agree with me that this is a shallow, not particularly imaginative Christmas film with some bad child actors and the only reason people have some affection for it is because Tim Allen makes for a pretty good Santa Claus. The premise of the film is that Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is a divorced father who is taking care of his son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) on Christmas Eve. When they hear a noise on the roof of their house, they discover that Santa Claus is real... but he has disappeared, leaving only his clothes behind. Charlie convinces his father to put on the red suit, hop in the flying sleigh and finish delivering the presents, not knowing that this means that by doing this, his father has agreed to become the new Santa Claus.My biggest problem with this movie is that the story's message is a really shallow one. If you look at the character of Charlie at the beginning of the movie, he doesn't like his father, doesn't want to be anywhere near him and is overall being a pain in the neck. Numerous times, he reiterates that he wants to spend as little time with his dad as possible during the holidays. When his father starts turning into Santa Claus though, all of a sudden these feelings change. This kid only begins loving his father because he is magically turned into a man that gives toys away for free. Let's look at some of the lessons or messages that we get from some of the classic holiday stories. Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" teaches even cynics that Christmas is not about presents, food or decorations, but about being together with the people you love and making the best of the holiday season. "A Christmas Carol" proclaims that the true spirit of Christmas is having good will towards your fellow man and extending a helpful hand out of generosity, and then goes on further to show that this spirit of Christmas should not be limited to only the 25th of December, but to every day of the year. "It's a Wonderful Life" shows that kindness and generosity are their own reward and that even when things seem to be dire and inescapably bad, the people that love you can gather and make it all OK; that one life, even if you don't think much of it, impacts countless others in a way that you can't fathom. What is the message of "The Santa Clause"? If your kid doesn't warm up to you during the holiday, magically transform yourself into Saint Nicholas, and he'll change his mind. Thanks for that! Maybe I'm looking too much into this movie. I bet you're just saying that this is a light family comedy, that's it. It doesn't mean to have any kind of message or deep meaning, it's just a Christmas-themed movie. I'll admit that it's not all bad. Tim Allen as Scott Calvin is actually really good. He has the best lines, throws himself fully in both the role of the frustrated father and Santa Claus and he not only looks the part, he feels right. Tim Allen, more than everything else in the movie combined made me laugh. I attribute the fact that people have affection for this movie solely on his performance and you can tell that he's having a good time. Considering he's the main character, that goes a long way.Even with Tim Allen doing what he does, this movie is still wrought with problems. This film feels like it was written not around a legitimate idea, but around the pun in the title. There are so many things that are unexplained or that flat-out make no sense. If Santa is running around giving people presents, why do the adults not connect two and two together when they see all of those gifts come Christmas morning? Why is it that only children believe in Saint Nick? Does no one spot him and his flying sleigh going around? Is there some kind of evil cabal that conspires against everyone in the world to oppress the belief of Santa Claus? Why is Santa kept a secret anyway? Maybe we'll get the answers in the sequels. Even if you dismiss these questions, there are some facts about this movie that are undeniable. First, the child actors are not very good. It's bad enough that Charlie, Scott's son is as wooden as a rocking horse, but every elf in this movie is played by a child (Well, one or two of them might be teenagers) and none of them are particularly convincing in their roles. I also really didn't care for the inconsistencies in the elf's magical powers and the numerous scenes where they feel the need to insert technology into Santa's Sleigh. He's been using magic for like a thousand years, and all of a sudden it's no longer good enough so they have to gives the elves jet packs (which leads to some big eye-rolls for me) and put all of these electronic gadgets in the sleigh. It just rubbed me the wrong way.I know a lot of people think of "The Santa Clause" as a holiday classic, but it's just alright. It's just one of the endless Christmas-themed family movies that are just churned out annually that hit that soft spot for a lot of people and families have associated it with quality and the holiday ever since. The message is shallow, the acting not particularly that good and the entire plot is based off a pun. Watch it for Tim Allen, but don't forsake one of the better Christmas films in order to watch "The Santa Clause". (On VHS, December 19, 2014)

The Santa Clause is all around the perfect family Holiday film. I don't mean to imply its a perfect film because it is of course silly, implausible, full of product placement (good ol' Disney), but its also sweet and fun and magical. Watching our main character's transformation into Santa is easily one of the most memorable in Christmas film history. The movie really has everything you could possibly want from a Christmas film right from square one with familiar Christmas classics, a middle aged divorced father more concerned with his career than his family, Santa, presents, North Pole, elves, magic...you name it. It is all here. There is also a ton of hidden little Easter Eggs (pardon the pun) in the film from Mickey Mouse's hidden face in the moon to elves hiding amongst the humans throughout the movie. Its a fantasy adventure comedy that kids will absolutely adore and adults can still smile even if its a guilty little pleasure. Best of all the film is full of magic and morals and is squeaky clean save few a couple of stupid fart jokes in the beginning (I hate fart jokes but they are there for better or for worse.) Tim Allen blew everyone away with his comedy on Home Improvement in the 90's and with this film he proved his chemistry could translate to the big screen. Allen really is fantastic in this movie. He goes from the selfish single Dad to Santa in all the right ways and makes the unbelievable believable. Eric Lloyd does a great job as Allen's son. He isn't amazing but this is really one of his first films and he is absolutely right for the part. The chemistry between him and Allen is perfect and fits the film. Wendy Crewson is Allen's ex-wife and she is good in the role. She doesn't get a lot of time on screen and her best scenes are towards the end when she comes around to the idea of her ex-husband being Santa Claus. Judge Reinhold is really the closest thing you get to a "villain" in the movie and he isn't quite that. He's a grown up who refuses to accept a concept like Santa Claus. They do make him awfully unlikable though which is unfortunate. However, he serves a purpose and mostly is there for Allen to make sarcastic jokes about. His scenes near the end when he comes around to Santa are really silly and poorly done in my opinion. David Krumholtz is sorely underused as the head elf. He is a very funny actor and I think there could have been more done with him and the relationship between him and Allen.Director John Pasquin had worked with Allen on Home Improvement and a few projects since then including his new sitcom "Last Man Standing." They likely know each other very well and know the style of comedy. I'm not sure he's the optimal choice for a family Christmas film but he absolutely gets it done in the right away. Perhaps my only but would be that there could have been more character development with the supporting cast and I felt like the ending is very rushed. They spend a lot of time building up this story and then it seems as though they realized they spent too much time and have to wrap it up very quickly. Nonetheless, this is a lot of fun and you will certainly enjoy watching it and you'll smile a lot. For me, it wasn't laugh out loud funny like I expected it to be but its simple and cute. There is a lot of magic for the little ones and you can't fault them at all for making something like that. Its worthy of adding to your family Christmas film rotation every year! I'm looking forward to following this up with the two sequels, one of which I have never seen. 7/10