Santa Clause 3: Escape Clause

 

 

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this movie is not that great.i found the story too
banal(ordinary).there's not much originality here.it's a combination of
many other movies.it's equal parts a Christmas Carol,It's a Wonderful
Life,How the Grinch Stole Christmas,and Even The Cat in the Hat
movie.the movie isn't very funny,but there is a bit of slapstick that
works.this movie is,i felt,overly sentimental and preachy.in fact,i
felt like i was watching a 90 minute commercial on how important family
is.now,don't get me wrong.family is very important.i just find that
subtlety works best with these movies.this was just way too heavy
handed for me.but there is some good news.the movie has a great visual
style.i mean,it looks fantastically magical.and Martin Short is
terrific as Jack Frost,the baddie of the piece.he's not really
scary,more mildly disconcerting than anything,and even a bit sad.i also
like the look they gave him.this movie is also a bit of a
tearjerker.anyway,this is a case of style over substance.and while it's
not nearly as mean spirited or creepy as part 2,i still don't think it
was as good.the negatives just outweigh the positives.for me,The Santa
Clause 3 is a 2/5

Having seen the previous Santa Clause movies, this one comes out on top. Martin Short (Jack Frost) and Tim Allen (Santa Clause) are unbeatable in this movie. Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause is the perfect movie for all ages, especially if you liked the other Santa Clause movies.

Thanksgiving is the time to start watching holiday movies, beginning with "Miracle on 34th Street," which begins with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It is also the time of year for last year's Christmas movies to come out so that we can buy for this Christmas. "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause" and "Deck the Halls" both came out this week, and having watched the former today while doing my Black Friday shopping on line I have to say that I am glad they never made "Miracle on 35th Street," or "It's a Wonderful Life, Part II: Mr. Potter's Revenge." Tim Allen makes a great Santa Claus, but by the third time around the charm of the original is long gone. How many times does Scott Clavin have to embrace being Santa Claus? Apparently three times, but let me get back to you four or five years down the road to see if that number has increased.

In this 2006 Christmas film it is the week before Christmas and things are once again getting frantic at the North Pole. Santa's wife, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell), is great with child and missing her home and family. So Scott decides if he cannot let his wife go to her parents, he will bring her parents, Sylvia (Ann-Margaret) and Bud (Alan Arkin), to the North Pole, which they will pretend is is Canada (the secret of Santa, a.k.a. "S.O.S.," must be preserved). But also along for the ride are Scott's ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), her husband, Neil (Judge Reinhold), and their daughter, Lucy (Liliana Mumy), and pretty much everything that I really liked about this movie ended up having to do with Lucy.

However, the key dynamic of the movie is between Santa and Jack Frost who is played by Martin Short as a creature who is a bit more menacing than he is funny, but not that funny. Jack thinks he deserves a more important role in the hierarchy of legendary figures, and when Mother Nature, the Tooth Fairy, and the rest of the gang tell him no, he decides to find a way to supplant Scott as Santa. The escape clause mentioned in the title has to do with Scott's special Santa snow globe and saying the magic words ("I wish that I had never become Santa Claus at all"). You know that Jack is going to succeed and that Scott is going to get his Santa suit back. You might be expecting the whole George Bailey gets to see the brave new world created by his wish, but we really get just a glimpse of that, and Scott ends up covering some of the same ground as "Back to the Future, Part II." Even then, they are just going through the motions, inserting scenes from the original without coming up with anything remotely inspired in any of these sequences.

The character of Lucy is important because the appeal of these movies is to small kids (or the small kid inside of most of us), and Eric Lloyd, who played Scott's son Charlie in the previous two films, is too old to play the role. Scott and Carol's baby has not been born yet, so screenwriters Ed Decter and John J. Strauss take Lucy from the second film and put her in the pivotal role. Her half-brother has been to the North Pole and Lucy has always wanted to go and she loves snow globes more than any other material item in Santa's Workshop. She has a special relationship with "Uncle" Scott, and that comes into play during the big finish. Scott has such problematic relationships with his pregnant wife, disapproving father-in-law, head-elf (Spencer Breslin, whose sister Abigail appears in the prologue and conclusion as one of the elves), and would-be-nemesis Jack Frost, that he has to resort to high-paced shtick with them, but with Lucy we really get to see Scott as Santa Claus. The problem is that there are very few of those scenes. You can debate whether "The Santa Clause 3" is an improvement on "The Santa Clause 2," but there is no doubt that the original is far and away the best of the lot and its charm is only being diluted by these sequels, regardless of the money they might be bringing in.

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