CHRISTMAS REVIEW OF THE DAY: Santa Claus (1985)

I was rather confused by this film. This was because I never knew whether to like it or dislike it. Then I suddenly began to slowly like it simply because it knows what it wants to present to us, and from what they wanted to present and make it is not that bad. Santa Claus is a Christmas film from 1985. Sort of having a cult following now as I hear more and more people do watch it around the holidays, the film tells its' own and original origin of Santa Claus, played by David Huddleston, and how he came to be like delivering toys, flying around the world in his sleigh, how he got his name, his friendship with the elves, all that good stuff. But in the meantime a greedy and selfish CEO of a toy company, played by John Lithgow, tricks one of Santa's elves named Patch, played by Dudley Moore.to make better and cooler toys for young ones to play with despite their design flaws, which is all part of the CEO's plan to takeover Santa's job as the giver of toys during Christmas. It's up to Santa to successfully reclaim his title, prove that he is truly worthy in bringing joy to kids all around the world, and to share the true gifts that Christmas has to offer.


On with the characters, let us first look at our main protagonist, Santa Claus himself. Now Santa Claus has had many actors portray him whether it would be in films, television specials, cartoons, you name it Santa Claus has been around for quite some time in any form of media. How David Huddleston holds up as the jolly old man though, surprisingly rather decent. As always whenever you get a good actor, he seems very into the role and very believable. He gives a plausible performance of jolly old St. Nick, as you wouldn't be surprised if a real Santa Claus were like this. As for the character himself, though the actor portrays him fine, but the way the he was written is just okay. Though I appreciate both the performance and the character, there is nothing really special to him. Whenever things happen whether good or bad he just goes along with it without questioning. I say they kind of played him up as too humble. We got Patch the elf played by Dudley Moore, whom oddly enough I feel a lot of the film focuses on. I mean you got the first act which builds up to Santa Claus and serves as a back story to the myths and legends about him, until we get to the second act where you swear you seeing another movie. As the character of Patch is indeed likeable, charming, and whimsical and Moore gives a subtle and plausibel performance as an elf who wants to be recognized, I still feel we knew enough about him and he should focus on Santa and his problems. The villain the CEO B.Z., played John Lithgow, is by far probably the most enjoyable character out of this entire film. Both Lithgow's performance and the overall presentation of the character including his written material is so over the top but yet still plasuible as it fits the tone and atmosphere of the film. We can accept a villain like this because the film just makes it clear that this is the type of world they live in. He's loud, selfish, greedy, comedic, childlike, everything that you would love in an over the top and comedic-type villain. Then we have two main children of the movie a boy and a girl. Well, there is not anything to special about the two that stands out or at least memorable. They are kind of boring characters and the actors do not really do them any justice.

The story is very simple yet so acceptable at the same time. This film was not meant to be anything massive or adult, just a simple family holiday family movie. Most of the character you can accept because the film successfully establishes the type of world that it is set in. It has a nice atmosphere all throughout that make what seems to be the smallest of problems and turning them into something crucial. When I mean by this is that the movie respects the character of Santa Claus, even though a lot of it focuses on the Dudley Moore elf. But despite that they respect Santa Claus because they give a worthy build up to who he is and what he does. I think what this film's main goal is for us too look at it as if we were a child again. Like A Christmas Story, though in that film it is done still a lot better, it wants us too look at it with a child's eyes. But instead of telling the whole story through the point of view of a child, like A Christmas Story did, the setting, the music, the writing  and the directing helps us do so.

Is it silly, yes, is it great, no, but you know what I was actually surprised and a little impressed with what I got. At times it got corny but you can tell there was some decent amount of effort and care put into it. One of the writers of the original Superman film starring Christopher Reeve had a part in writing this film and it definitely shows. There is a lot of atmosphere, wonder, and build up in both these movies and it treats whatever conflict it wants to present us like it is very crucial and it does it well enough for us to deliver it. It could have been better but at the same time it could have been a lot worse. I heard when this film came out, the critics were definitely not fans of it and were really harsh and honestly I don't think it deserves that. I recommended it not because I think it's great, I think it's just okay, but I think people can get out their honest opinions about it and share as I think it deserves better constructive criticism from what it wanted to and did present to us. Not the best Christmas film I had seen but I was impressed in how it didn't need to talk down to its audience with it's childlike yet simple story and atmosphere. I can see why there are some who would whip it out this time of the year.

SANTA'S LIST: NICE

GRADE: P-