AC8 - MSR - The Santa Clause

So here's an interesting question. What if Santa was more than one person if not the name of a role given to some ordinary man? Well these 3 films try to answer that very question and well, I honestly thought this series had the potential of being good, but ultimately, the sequels just let it down in a similar but very different way to how people see the Transformer films by the Bayster. But enough about that, let's take a look at these films:

The Santa Clause

So we follow this guy called Scott Calvin (played by Allen) who is both a 38 year old advertising executive and a divorcee and father to his son Charlie (played by Eric Lloyd). He spends Christmas Eve with him, when he hears sounds coming from the roof. There is an old man up there who gets shaken up by Scott and falls down and vanishes, leaving his costume among other unusual things behind. This person turns out to be Santa and Charlie convinces his dad to put the costume on, whereby soon after, he then appears at Santa's workshop where he meets the head elf Bernard (played by David Krumholtz) who upon finding him with a contract, is given the assumption that Scott has accepted the responsibilities of being Santa and is given until Thanksgiving to sort things out before permanently taking the job, which as you'll expect, he is reluctant to do so. Will he succeed and will he take on the role? Watch the film and you will see. As one of the few Christmas films that is actually pretty good, I would just call it average. Its good the charm and charisma of any family film that is set at Christmas and the idea is one that hasn't been done before at the time of its initial release. Personally, its one that I do find enjoyment with, but not to a great extent. I don't know, it just feels kind of forgettable to me, but that's just me. 8/10

2

So its been some time since the events of the first film and Scott is enjoying his time as being Santa Clause. But it turns out that in order to remain as the titular role, he must find and marry a woman who is dubbed as "The Mrs. Clause" and him being a divorcee, he is on the clock and must find and marry a woman before his eight years are up or be forced to ruin and kill Christmas forever. This film is pretty much another one of those average family Christmas films in that it has charm and charisma and is mostly harmless and enjoyable. But much like with before, its quite forgettable. But the acting is pretty good, there's much more going on here than before and honestly, I actually remember this one the most as its always on the TV at this time of the year which kind of means that its one that everyone seems to enjoy and love the most of the three films so that must mean something and I actually do like it even if everyone finds it to be average. 8/10

3: The Escape Clause

So we now come to the last of the series where Scott is continuing the good life of being Santa along with his wife and both are expecting their first child. His wife begins to miss her family so Scott decides to bring up the whole family including his in-laws and ex wife to keep her company while he speaks with a group of holiday creatures, among of which is Jack Frost (played by the next mad man to Mike Myers, Martin Short) who being the only one of the creatures that doesn't have a holiday celebration, attempts to upstage Scott. However, because of Scott's in laws being with him, Jack Frost assists him in covering up the fact that Scott is Santa, but what he doesn't know is that Frost's master plan is to take his place and will do anything to do so. Of all the films here, this is the one that is the most forgettable, the shortest and pretty much throws all the charm and charisma that the last 2 had out of the film just to make it more annoying than light hearted and fun like the other films. It is by far the worst of the series, it didn't even need to be made in the first place and I just feel that it was just an excuse to use a character who is typically associated with snow days (something of which Rise of the Guardians was able to do better than this). 4/10

So that's the series. Its was an idea that hadn't been used before and I think Disney and Tim Allen did well to try and see how such a thing would work, but I just think their way of doing it, made all 3 films very forgettable and is the only other set of films that Tim Allen will be known for besides the Toy Story films. 7/10