Reviewing - The Santa Clause Trilogy
This is the only true holiday trilogy I've ever seen.
I'm sure Hallmark has something along those lines, but we can discard those on the basis of them not being theatrically released films. Home Alone is currently a franchise of FIVE films, but they abandoned the main characters so we can't really say there's a trilogy in there. The Grinch has three different screen adaptations, but they're each self-contained, so they're not trilogies either. The Santa Clause Trilogy stars Tim Allen every time in one ongoing coherent story. Whether or not the trilogy is any good, the fact that there IS a trilogy should be saying something. And for the record, two out of three of these films are EXCELLENT and should be standard watching material during your Christmas season.
The Santa Clause (****)
In which Santa dies
I think this film deserves more attention than it gets because it is simply beautiful.
Let’s acknowledge the weird stuff first, because otherwise we won’t be able to really appreciate all the good parts. It’s certainly funny that Tim Allen kind of kills Santa Claus. That’s a great bit where Charlie says “You killed him!” At the same time, the ramifications of killing Santa are fairly significant but never really delved into. Can Santa really die from falling off a roof? Was he a good Santa? If he was, why do none of the elves seem perturbed when a totally different guy shows up at the North Pole on Christmas morning? There’s not even a moment of sadness for the deceased Kris Kringle. And what about Mrs. Claus? The sequel mandates that one MUST exist, so what happened to the late Father Christmas’s wife? Did she disappear at the same time as him? And why did Santa wave goodbye at the last second? Did he KNOW this was going to happen? Did he willingly fall off the roof in order for a new Santa to be crowned? What other injuries can Santa be inflicted with that would be enough to kill him? So many questions!!
The other thing I have a hard time getting over is the fact that Tim Allen (we could call him by his character’s name, but he’s really only playing himself) kind of sort of definitely kidnaps his son. Towards the end, he’s lost all legal custody of Charlie. He is legally ordered not to see his son, but he walks into the house, asks for a moment alone with the kid, and then RUNS AWAY with him. Whether the kid knows it or not, that is kidnapping! In Ontario when this kind of thing happens, a text message alert is sent out to literally everyone in the province so that we can find the kidnapper quickly. The response of the police in this film is absolutely rational, and Santa made a certifiably bad call. This is how kidnappings actually happen! People with real problems get deluded into thinking they’re the best thing for their kid when they’re clearly not. There’s just something about that scene in the film that is so real it’s actually a bit off-putting.
But hey, I said this movie was beautiful, so now that we’ve acknowledged the weird stuff, let’s get to everything else. There are so many right calls that were made in this film, and I’m so grateful for it. I LOVE how the elves are played by children. It’s adorable! They’ve all got rosy cheeks and cute little noses and you just wanna hug each and every one of them. When they’re tinkering away in Santa’s Workshop, it’s a moment of pure magic. Speaking of Santa’s Workshop, I LOVE the set design for the North Pole. There was so much creativity and detail in all of the Santa-sets. Remember the “Ball Room”? Brilliant! And knowing that all of it was actually there – that this was a real set that actors walked through – that makes it so much better. Green screen is fine sometimes, but there’s something special about seeing something as real as the set they constructed for this movie. I loved that.
Not everyone is a fan of Tim Allen, but I thought he was hilarious in this movie. His sarcasm and snide little comments are perfectly timed and delivered, and the way he picks on his ex-wife’s new man consistently gets a laugh out of me. His son Charlie also steals the show because he’s just so darn cute. He’s the classic 90s kid, but more than that, the kid can act. When he cries at the end of the film, you feel it in your gut. He’s not messing around. He and his dad are the two most important roles in the movie, so it’s great that the casting director nailed it with both of them.
The music in the movie is simply beautiful, so for the life of me I can’t figure out why I can’t listen to it anywhere. Why hasn’t it been released on Apple Music?! I’ve honestly never heard the name of Michael Convertino before or since this film, but he injected the movie with truly magical and heartwarming music. It’s got that cinnamon-sweet nostalgic taste that a Christmas soundtrack should have, and it noticeably impacts every scene that it’s heard in. Great job!
This is a holiday classic and deserves the same level of recognition as the other big guns of the Christmas season. But if Santa can die and there’s this whole replacement protocol in order, how many Santas have perished in the past? How have each of them died? What if someone doesn’t put on the suit?! What happens then?!
It’s these questions that keep me up at night on Christmas Eve.
The Santa Clause 2 (****)
In which Tim Allen calls Tim Allen a "sad strange, little man"
No matter how many times I watch this, there’s one scene that makes me laugh until I cry every single time.
There aren’t a whole lot of Christmas sequels out there, and I think part of that is because Christmas movies tend to be highly self-contained narratives. A sequel film focusing on Scrooge’s new life probably wouldn’t be that interesting, for example. The first Santa Clause movie was definitely a self-contained story. It didn’t demand a sequel – and more than that, eight years had passed since the original film. That’s a long time to wait for a follow-up. That’s also why this movie was such a pleasant surprise.
It was great to have the whole cast back – Mom, Neil, Bernard, Charlie (especially Charlie). An eight-year gap would normally make such a reunion fairly difficult, but they managed to get the whole band back together with some charming additions. Scott’s niece Lucy is adorable. Curtis, the number two elf, is quite funny, and Elizabeth Mitchell does a great job as the leading lady and Santa’s love interest. She nails the ‘teacher’ glare multiple times in the film.
I loved getting to see a beautiful set piece for the North Pole – there’s a large snow-covered courtyard in a few scenes, and the interior of Santa’s Workshop is just as much of a delight as it was last time. And just like last time, the elves played by kids are too cute not to love. But beyond the fact that they brought some of the best parts of the original film forward, what makes this movie so terrific is Tim Allen playing Toy Santa. It’s Tim Allen playing a caricature of his own performance, hamming it up to the max. He’s absolutely hysterical. It’s the scene where Toy Santa drinks some hot cocoa that gets me every time. It’s just so funny. Even if the rest of the movie stank, that bit alone would be worth it.
Speaking of memorable scenes, the bit where Scott Calvin gives gifts to the faculty of Principal Newman’s school is really heartwarming. We hear all the time about how Christmas is over-commercialized and how it’s not about the stuff we get. That’s all true – but this scene reminds us of the power of a gift. Gifts can make us feel like children again, and they can bring us together. It may be just stuff, but it can also be so much more than that.
The sleigh ride with Scott and Carol was also really beautiful. The reindeer animatronics were super cool too. Oh! And the bit where Charlie expresses his frustration with not being able to tell his friends about what his dad does for a living – that’s another great moment. This movie has a scene or two that kind of falls flat for me (Scott’s blind date, for example), but there’s too much about it for me to love.
But hang on – if Scott Calvin dropped off the face of the earth after the last film, what happened to his social security number? Did the police write a report on the kidnapping? Wouldn’t Principal Newman have been aware of that? How did Santa manage such a cover-up?
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
In which two Americans honestly mistake Santa’s Workshop for Canada and I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted
It’s another third-film-flop, but it’s not as heartbreaking as some of the others I’ve seen.
Before I go any further, we have to address Mrs. Claus. In the end credits of the last film, we saw Mrs. Claus go plus-size, presumably because of the same magic that turned Tim Allen into Santa. But now, she’s regular Elizabeth-Mitchell-size again. Are we to believe that the end credits of the previous film are non-canon? Or did she gain the weight and then mysteriously drop it? That strains credulity particularly because she’s pregnant for the duration of this film. If anything, she should be bigger than we saw her in the end of Santa Clause 2. This trilogy just raises so many questions.
Speaking of which, let’s touch on the Hall of Snowglobes. It’s a super cool room. Apparently there’s one magical floating snowglobe in here for each Santa that’s ever lived.
Wait, what?
There’s like 100 snowglobes in here.
Are you telling me that 100 Santas have fallen off roofs or have otherwise been killed in order for the next one to take their place?!
Okay, sure. Maybe some of them died peacefully. But there’s a lot more job turnover here than I thought! And snowglobes have apparently only been around since the end of the 19th century. Either Santa’s been using them for many centuries before that…or all of these Santas have died in the last hundred years or so. Yikes.
I’m almost done I promise. So if each of these snowglobes belongs to a different Santa, what about the snowglobe from the first film? Was that the snowglobe of the previous Santa? Or did that one magically appear when Tim Allen became the next Santa? How are these snowglobes created?
Okay we can start talking about the movie now.
I think as a whole the number of laughs has significantly decreased. The script just isn’t as compelling this time around. Jack Frost is a little over the top – even for this franchise – and as much as I like Martin Short, I just don’t think he’s that great of a character. He’s too petty to be villainous and too villainous to be charming. His costume change in the alternate timeline is particularly grotesque. The script in general just doesn’t have the flavor or life that the first two did, and I think that’s partly because we have a lot less of Tim Allen being Tim Allen. In the first movie he was incredibly snarky, and we got more of that in the second one with Toy Santa and Tim back in the real world. Here, Tim is Santa for 90% of the movie, which unfortunately prevents him from giving us a great performance.
The whole bit where the little girl’s hug warms a frozen heart is also just way too cheesy. There’s been a bit of cheese in this franchise before, but this moment is laying it on way too thick. The Santa Clause 3 rounds out the trilogy, but it’s never a film that I’ll ask to watch. Watch the first two and call it quits there.