Posted on: Friday, November 1, 2002
MOVIE SCENE
Kids, not parents, might adore 'Santa Clause 2'
By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
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| Santa must find a wife or lose his powers in this kid-centric comedy sequel to the 1994 hit.
. . . THE SANTA CLAUSE 2 |
The Christmas season seems to start earlier every year, at least in the malls and shopping centers.
Proof: Here it is, early November, and already "The Santa Clause 2" is rolling into theaters. It's only a matter of time before movies like this start popping up just after Labor Day.
A sequel to the mild-mannered 1994 hit, this harmless sugar-plum of a movie is just that: a confection that's long on sweetness but unfortunately short on jokes that will amuse anyone over the age of 8.
In the original film, Tim Allen played Scott Calvin, a hard-charging divorced dad who accidentally caused Santa to fall from a roof. When he put on the dying Santa's coat, he discovered that he had inadvertently agreed to become the new Santa — then had to figure out how to leave his old life behind for his new career at the North Pole.
It's now eight years later and Scott, it is generally agreed, is the best Santa ever. Productivity is up at the North Pole and Santa is a jovial playmate to the horde of childlike elves he commands.
But a problem arises (because if it didn't, there wouldn't be a movie): There's a second Santa Clause, which states that, if Santa doesn't get married by the next Christmas, less than a month away, he will stop being Santa. Indeed, even as he reads these words, his beard and belly visibly shrink, leading an elf to shout, "The de-Santafication has begun!"
(This, of course, begs the question of what happened to the last Santa's missus when Scott replaced him. Apparently this isn't something Disney wants youngsters dwelling on.)
Even as Santa must focus on finding a mate, he also has to deal with Charlie, his son from his former life. Charlie (Eric Lloyd), now in high school, has turned up on Santa's "Naughty List" for spray-painting unflattering graffiti about his high school principal on the walls of his school.
Santa must go back to his old life as Scott to find a woman willing to move to the North Pole, even as he deals with Charlie's discipline problems. Because the principal (Elizabeth Newman) is the best-looking woman in the film, well, you figure it out.
Since he can't be in two places at once — and there's only a month until Christmas — Santa allows himself to be cloned as a toy, so he can leave someone behind to keep the elves working. But the toy Santa (also played by Allen, wearing plastic hair and beard) gets power-mad and decides that all children are too naughty for toys — so he'll deliver lumps of coal to everyone instead.
The joke in the first film was that, no matter what Scott did to try to stop it, he could not halt his physical transformation from normal guy into someone whose belly jiggles like a bowl full of jelly.
So this movie flips the script: During de-Santafication, Scott shrinks back from Santa into Scott. There's a knee-slapper.
To his credit, director Michael Lembeck keeps things moving at a clip that will have young audiences entertained, despite the film's ungainly 105-minute length.
Unfortunately for parents, the squad of five writers (plus two more with story credit) come up with very few jokes that will go over the heads of junior viewers and tickle their guardians. The one truly funny sequence involves a meeting of the council of imaginary characters, including Mother Nature, Father Time and the Tooth Fairy (a big burly guy with wings who keeps asking if he can change his name).
Otherwise, the few adult laughs are generated by Allen's wisecracks as Scott and his skewed behavior as the toy Santa. Kids, on the other hand, will howl at the jokes about reindeer flatulence.
