The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Released: 11/03/06

Viewed: 7:30 pm 11/05/06

Starring: Tim Allen, Martin Short,

Directed by: Michael Lembeck, Elizabeth Mitchell, Ann-Margret, Alan Arkin, Spencer Breslin

Disney Official Site of the Movie

About the comic:

There are several things wrong with that last panel. For Santa to ever ask that in a contractual dispute would mean that at some point, the Easter Bunny would have signed a contract saying that he wouldn’t touch children in certain places. I guess that’s not too out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that was included in the contracts that mall Easter Bunnies have to sign. Either way, it’s weird, but I really wanted him to say it. And it’s not that much weirder than the second panel.

The Review:

Martin Short ruins movies. Somehow he’s cast a magical spell on the world that makes us think he’s the funniest thing to come along since pie met face, but I’m not falling for it. His larger-than-life, theatrical, loud for the sake of being loud performance, in everything he does, was hysterical when he was Ed Grimly and I was 4-years-old, but as I’ve grown up I’ve wondered what the appeal is. There’s a point where bowlegged dancing and hamming it up to the camera stops being funny. Like anyone that’s been able to achieve his rank of celebrity through comedy, he has had his funny moments, but I’ve found that for the most part, his total awareness of his comedy is forcefully unfunny.

A third installment of The Santa Clause seemed like a perfect fit for Short. At least he wouldn’t be ruining a franchise I had anything invested in. Could you imagine if he showed up in The Matrix or Lord of the Rings? “I’m a wizard and I SING!� At least his damage would be minimal and contained to The Santa Clause, which was already borderline-cutesy-lame to begin with.

Somehow, Martin Short was not a problem at all. I’d actually say he’s pretty good in The Santa Clause 3 as Jack Frost, a bitter seasonal representative that craves the spotlight that Santa has every year. He’s the perfect combination of mischief and spite without getting so evil that you flat out hate him. No, Martin Short isn’t the reason Santa 3 sucks, it sucks for completely different reasons, but the fact that none of them are Martin Short was a complete surprise.

Wow, that’s three paragraphs of straight mean. I feel bad, but I just don’t get Martin Short. Whenever he appears on a talk show I just shake my head in amazement and wonder if the audiences are either really polite or really easy to impress. What do I know though? The guys a national treasure.

Jack Frost steals the spotlight, but the movie should belong to Santa, played again by Tim Allen, who sadly struggles behind the fat suit and beard, barely registering an ounce of the familiarity that made him fun to watch in the first place. With Santa 3, Allen delivers his third kid’s movie of 2006 (The Shaggy Dog, Zoom). Strangely enough, former go-to cute kid Spencer Breslin who is entering his not a boy, not yet a man phase, costarred in all three movies with Allen. I’d say they were each other’s good luck charm but all three movies were kind of a let down.

I admit that going in I was kind of excited about The Santa Clause 3. I’m not a huge fan of the series but this third installment introduced the concept of some characters traveling through time to the first movie, in order to steal the mantel of Santa Claus from Allen’s character. Time paradoxes like that are like presents on Christmas to me, unfortunately the Santa Clause 3 plumps down like a sack of coal and deals with this time jump quickly and predictably.

The majority of the movie is Jack Frost sabotaging the framework of Santa’s village the day before Christmas. As playful and fun as it may be, it only leaves about 15 minutes of time in the alternate reality created by the time jump, 3 of which are dedicated to a musical number. Lame. Had they spent as much time developing the consequences of altering time as they did with applying icicles to Martin Shorts’ eyebrows, we might have had something interesting to talk about today. Probably not, but my expectations for such a conversation were dashed somewhere between the elves pretending to be Canadian and seeing Kevin Pollack dressed as Cupid.

The movie is cute and harmless, but plays much more like a TV special than a feature film. Even seasoned veterans like Ann-Margret and Alan Arkin couldn’t elevate the quality of this film beyond a couple of giggles. There’s a nice foundation story about the importance of family (what sort of holiday classic would it be if we didn’t learn to love our kids, or our in-laws, or both?), that even includes a pregnant Mrs. Clause (Elizabeth Mitchell who appears on TV now as a bad guy in LOST and most recently on screen as a child molester in Running Scared). The pregnancy is either a nice idea for the progression of the characters, or a set up for a direct to DVD sequel. I can’t decide.

Rating: 3.5 out of 10

Admittedly disappointing, but I’m not loosing any sleep over it. It’s not going to be a holiday classic but it also won’t bore you to tears. A week after viewing it you’ll have forgotten it completely. It has the lasting impact of voting in today’s democracy. That would have been funnier last week.

DVD Worthy?:

No. The Santa Clause 3 is way too dumbed-down to be enjoyed regularly, even by children. It’s sort of a nice piece to fit with the series but I personally get frustrated with how they took a fantastic idea and did nothing with it. It’s one dimensional and forgettable.

Recommendation: Back to the Future 2

What looked so great about the Santa Clause 3 was the way the characters played with time and showed the real consequences of those actions. But the long build up to that moment wasn’t worth the 15 minute sequence. It made me want to see how it’s properly done, and watch Back to the Future Part 2. Besides the last five minutes of the original Back to the Future, Part 2 is the first film in the series to really tackle the cause and effects of time travel. The drastically different version of 1985 where Marty’s father is dead and his mother is married to Biff was a shocking wake up call to something Doc Brown had been warning us about all along. Not to mention the hover boards! That didn’t really have anything to do with time travel or cause and effect, but it was still really cool.

Trailer Hitch: Deck the Halls

This movie makes me cringe for Mathew Broderick’s career. Deck the Halls, which features Broderick getting into a Christmas decorating contest with neighbor Danny DeVito, looks like the sort of cutesy family fun that even Tim Allen would turn down because it’s too lame. I’m a Broderick fan and I hate to see him floundering around in a witless comedy when he could be making another Election or Ferris Bueller quality film that will last forever. Then again, I’m not exactly the target audience, and those little kids probably won’t care what epic piece of film that the guy wrapped in Christmas tree lights made 20 years ago. Not since Schwarzenegger starred in Jingle All the Way have I ever felt such miscasting in a holiday film. Then again, Jingle All the Way is as cool as God’s balls, so Deck the Halls might end up surprising me.

Outside the Theater: JLCM was the topic of a podcast over at Rock Star Robot this week. Thanks, guys! Go ahead and give it a listen and let them know that JLCM fans are the coolest fans in the universe! One day I’d love to be involved with one of these podcasts about JLCM because there are always one or two things I’d like to reply on. Of course I’d probably talk too much and ruin the whole thing.

Rock Star Robot is co-hosted by a good friend of mine, Scott, who was one of the cofounders of Exile Comics. For anyone that doesn’t know the finer details of my history with webcomics, it should be noted that Exile Comics has been influential enough to deserve it’s own chapter.

As a young comic strip just starting out you struggle to reach audiences and to find your place on the Internet. Exile welcomed Free Lunch and Matriculated into their comics group and taught me personally a lot of the importance of community and comradery among web comics. Something that I would later realize is as important as the comics themselves. Exile was my first real support system and taught me so much. For that I will be eternally grateful.

It just so happens that another Exile co-founder Carl got married a couple of weeks ago. I had the pleasure of meeting his new bride Sarah a couple of conventions ago and she’s far lovelier then any comic nerd deserves. Except Carl who is the dreamiest of all webcomic nerds. Congrats to both of you!

Carl actually sent me a nice wedding gift over the summer when Yeo and I tied the knot. It was a huge poster of me as a wizard. Totally awesome. I need to break out the camera and take some pictures of it to show you guys, because Joe the wizard is way cooler than Joe the webcomic guy. I’ll get to it later though. This entry has gone on far too long than The Santa Clause 3 deserves.

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