Five Things I liked in Santa Clause 3:The Escape Clause

And now for a challenge. As you guys know, I kike to take a bad movie and find good things about it. Since it’s Christmas, I knew the perfect choice for this. The problem? I really hate this one. But can I find five positives anyway? Let’s discuss:

 

I heard Tim Allen say that he was going to make this on The Tonight Show and my reaction was, what the heck is the plot going to be? Twelve years after the first movie, we got this unnecessary sequel, The second movie managed a premise that made sense. Enough sense anyway. This one was pushing things but to be honest, I was in on the premise. It sounded like a neat idea. Santa gets disgruntled and wonders if he should have ever become Santa at all. Ok, not original but it had promise.  It didn’t work out quite that way,

The Sets

With the stupid Canada joke we get a good look at the sets for the north pole here,and they are very well done. Of course the Hall of Snow Globes is amazing, and they did a real good job changing the set in the alternate tine lime so that it almost doesn’t even look like the same place.










The Logical Character Arc

In Santa Clause 2, Carol agrees to move to The North Pole and become Ms.Claus (consequently giving up her whole life) VERY quickly. So quickly that the fact that she has some regret about her choice is perfectly reasonable. And Elizabeth Perkins plays it very nicely, clearly sad but afraid to show it (being a good Mrs.Claus too). The solution at the end is to stop keeping her from her family. Ok it’s a little easy but Perkins does a really good job in the scenes she ‘s in.









Martin Short as Jack Forest

Perkins aside there are some bad performances here, and the elf’s had be turned into into idiots to make the story even work especially during the needless middle where the North Pole falls apart. Seriously it goes on forever! But I have to admit, Martin Short as Jack Frost was ideal casting, I get the feeling this was a case of him being the producers first choice. He just seems to be having a ball in the role and does a great job flipping between nice and sinister. Though he was a little to sinister in the scene where he freezes Neil and Laura!









Santa’s redemption/Council of Legendary Figures

Even though it was setup badly, when time is restored and we see Santa is so happy to be back and see his wife again we get a nice scene,. Tim Allen really pulled that moment off, seeing Santa not only happy to be Santa but reminded he loves hie wife. That leads to the ending which is rushed, but not the worst. Though seeing the Council of Legendary Figures was cute.










That 10 Minutes in the frost time line

After about an hour of hijinks and filler, the plot finally starts. Santa touches the globe causing time to reset, and Frost steals the jacket to become Santa. As I’ve mentioned, this is a dramatic tonal shift. We go from a silly kids movie to more adult family novice. And my question is, why wasn’t the whole movie like this? The worst part of course is that the whole scene takes about ten minutes before it’s wrapped up. Scott figures out what happened fast, arrives at The North Pole and comes up with a solution in no time flat.  This could have been better, by extending Scott’s journey to The North Pole so he could really see what was different in this reality. There are hints, like his son hating his guts, the greedy kids at the faux North Pole and of course how miserable the Elves are. But it could have been so much better. It happens so fast there isn’t any suspense, it’s over before we can really get into it. When we cut back to the first movie that is also rushed with the scenes edited and presented incorrectly somehow (how do they not know there own continuity?). Scott has a line about the Santa suit choosing you which was a great line. If the film had been done well, it would have been a great arc for his character for all three movies. Going from denying the Santa on to full on accepting it. But it was not done well,  This should have been the whole movie, rather than a brief diversion. I once said the movie has to much beginning and not enough ending, and I still think that. And I’ll ignore that the fact that Scott remembers the past after its been changed makes no sense either.

So the bottom line is, this movie had potential. It had the idea, it had the actors, it just lacked a good script and strong direction. And that is what pisses me off the most. I can deal with a bad movie, there a dime a dozen, but to see a movie take a good idea and squander it  is just irritating. It’s worth a watch, in a “bad movie” way.



And I swear I didn’t mean to do three Tim Allen articles in a row. Just kind of worked out that