The Santa Clause is one of those movies that my family and I watched on VHS when it first came out on home video in 1995. We've never actually owned it though. I don't think. We had/have the second and third movies in the trilogy on DVD, but I don't think we've ever owned this one on any home video format. We just rented it on VHS way back in the day.
This movie is the very definition of '90s cheesy goodness. Sometimes that can be a bad thing. For example, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and it's 1995 theatrical feature film, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, are also the definition of '90s cheesy goodness. Except that show and it's movie fit into the "it's so bad that it's good" category. The Santa Clause is legitimately good. And dare I say that it's a much better movie than the 1998 Jonathan Taylor Thomas Christmas film, I'll Be Home for Christmas? It's not just a better movie, but I also like it a lot better too.
Normally when I watch these movies for my reviews, I watch them by myself. Even before the pandemic I tended to watch movies by myself if I was going to review them. However it was my birthday on Friday and I had virtual plans with friends on Friday and Saturday night, so last night I celebrated with my brother and sister. We had chosen The Santa Clause because it was one of our favourites growing up (we watched it on TV any time it aired) and we thought it'd be fun to watch for a virtual watch party. So, we each had headphones on while we chatted on FaceTime and watched the movie together, and it amazingly stayed synced up fairly nicely.
One of the things that I noticed during this viewing that I didn't notice when I watched it as a kid or as a teenager is that Tim Allen's character, Scott Calvin, is very conflicted throughout the movie. At first he's conflicted with the idea that his ex-wife, Laura (played by Wendy Crewson) has married a psychiatrist named Neil (played by Judge Reinhold). He's also conflicted whether or not to believe that he is becoming Santa Claus, both physically and mentally, while trying to help Laura and Neil deal with Charlie, attempting several times during the movie to convince Charlie that they didn't really go to the North Pole and that he (Scott) isn't really Santa. It's not until Charlie's passionate pleas for Scott to remember, that Scott fully becomes Santa Claus and loses the conflict within himself.
Something else that I noticed with this viewing is that all the adults are trying their best to dissuade Charlie, and each other, that Santa isn't real and that Scott is just a crazy man, who's a bad influence on his son. Which is interesting as this is something that tends to be in a lot of Christmas movies and TV shows in the '80s and '90s. The adults are portrayed as stuffy people whose creativity and imagination are things they "grew out of" while the child characters represent the imagination and creativity that the adults lost. It's no different here. And just like other Christmas movies, it takes Laura and Neil seeing Scott as Santa to finally believe in Santa Claus again.
I love the cast in this movie. Tim Allen is one of my favourite actors from the '90s as is David Krumholtz, who I've seen in other things like Serenity, the movie continuation of the short-lived 2003 Sci-Fi series Firefly, and the short-lived 2012 sitcom, Partners, which also starred Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill) and Brandon Routh (Superman Returns, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, DC's Legends of Tomorrow). Also, Peter Boyle, who played Frank Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond appears as Scott's boss. Aside from Boyle, Krumholtz and Allen, the only actor I'm even remotely familiar with is Judge Reinhold because of his role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which I have not seen, but I own it on DVD, and I know of it. Wendy Crewson, who plays Laura in this movie, is also vaguely familiar because she was in the 1998 film, Bicentennial Man, which I watched on VHS up at the cottage once when I was a teenager. I do wish they kind of had more of a reason for Scott and Neil to be at odds with each other, but what we got here was good enough. Not something that really needed to be focused on in a children's movie. Oh, and Mary Gross, who played Sabrina's teacher, Mrs. Quick in seasons 2 through 7, shows up as Charlie's teacher in this movie as well.
The one downer for me with this movie is the horrible CGI effects that are in it. Early to mid '90s CGI was absolutely atrocious in most movies. Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Jurassic Park seem to be the exceptions, outside of the few shots used in animated movies like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. And obviously CG animated movies like Toy Story were pretty great too. Live action movies however, especially those made for families and children, were pretty terrible when it came to CGI in the early to mid-'90s, around 1996 or 1997.
Something this movie does well that I think started here, was the way Santa's Workshop is portrayed in most movies and TV shows. In earlier Christmas movies and specials, Santa's workshop was portrayed as this small, single room cabin or as a small room inside of Santa's castle in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But, sometime in the mid '90s, probably with this movie, Santa's Workshop became more like an industrial factory with multiple levels, rooms and a larger Elf work force than before. Like I said, I'm not quite sure whether this was the first movie/special to do it in, since the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 3 episode, "I'm Dreaming of a White Ranger" still shows Santa's Workshop as a small single room cabin and that aired in November 1995, and so did a few cartoons around this time too. But I'm pretty sure this was the first movie to show the workshop as being bigger than it's normally portrayed as being. Of course that could just be the difference between a live action movie with a budget and a live action movie or special with little to no budget.
Of course The Santa Clause was first released on VHS in 1995, but was first released on DVD in 1998. It had another DVD release in 2002 as well. I don't think we had any of the DVD releases of the movie, but if we did, then the 2002 "Special Edition" release would've been the one we would've owned rather than the earliest 1998 release (cover shown above). It's also currently streaming on Disney+.
Overall The Santa Clause is an awesome Christmas movie and an awesome Disney live-action film. Disney didn't have a lot of great live action movies in the '90s except for The Santa Clause, The Rocketeer, The Parent Trap, and Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. I'm giving The Santa Clause 8.5/10. It's funny, it's charming, it's slightly thought provoking. But the CGI is terrible even though it's used sparingly.
That's it for this week's Disney Christmas movie review. Next week I'll be taking a look at Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and then on Christmas week I'll be reviewing I'll Be Home for Christmas. I'll be back on Wednesday for my review of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Have a wonderful evening everyone and I'll see you on Wednesday. Bye for now.
Links
Disney Wiki: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Santa_Clause
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