Movie Review by Vivienne Messenger
Starring: Tim Allen, Elizabeth Mitchell, Judge Reinhold, Spencer Breslin, Eric Lloyd
Director: Michael Lembeck
Tim Allen returns in the sequel, THE SANTA CLAUSE 2, as Scott Calvin aka Santa Claus, who mysteriously keeps desantafying the closer Christmas comes. Why? Because in his contract there’s a clause – a Mrs Clause to be precise – that states he has to marry before midnight on Christmas Eve or he’ll no longer be Santa Claus – forever!
With Christmas approaching fast, Santa and his elves at the North Pole are busy preparing all the presents. Curtis (Spencer Breslin), a wise elf, hits upon the idea of duplicating Santa Claus. The real Santa/Scott can then return home to his son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) (who’s been getting into trouble recently and is now on Santa’s ‘naughty’ list) and find a wife while his duplicate remains at the Pole overseeing the elves diligently working at this busy time.
Escaping quietly into the night on his faithful reindeer Comet, Scott returns home to a meeting in Principal Newman’s (Elizabeth Mitchell) office at Charlie’s school as he’s been caught vandalising school property. Conversely while Scott metamorphoses away from being Santa physically as his beard and tummy noticeably disappear, his duplicate back at the Pole begins wreaking havoc with his redefinition of what’s naughty and nice, upsetting the elves and the status quo.
THE SANTA CLAUSE 2 takes an interesting perspective on Christmas and introduces some other mythical characters into the movie including the Tooth Fairy (Art LaFleur), Cupid (Kevin Pollak), Mother Nature (Aisha Tyler) and The Sandman (Michael Dorn – STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION and DS9 TV series) supported by a talented cast of young actors. Despite having quite a complicated and lengthy plot for some of the younger ones in the audience to grasp – bar a few more serious scenes – the magic of Christmas definitely shines through in this big budget sequel, all 98 minutes of it, and keeps most fidgets suitably mesmerised throughout.
So does Scott find himself a wife in time as his special wrist watch counts down to Christmas Eve, re-santafy back to his former bulky Santa Claus-self and regain control of his elf kingdom at the Pole? I expect most of you will already know the answer but with a thrilling, commando-style, grand finale to this Walt Disney extravaganza, peppered with witty dialogue from the very talented Tim Allen, THE SANTA CLAUSE 2 will magically entertain everyone in this often fraught pre-Christmas phase.
