Tag Archives: Reindeer

Mrs. Santa Claus Review

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Santa Claus gets a lot of films so it’s about time that Mrs. Santa Claus gets something too right? This makes for a fun film even if it is a bit uneventful. Santa doesn’t look great here and the kids are annoying but we do get a standout villain that’s actually rather impressive. When you have a villain that can take on the reindeer then you know things are going to get good. There are a few scenes in the film that make you think things are about to get epic but they tend to be false alarms.

The movie starts with Santa ignoring Mrs. Claus as she tries to help him out by making hot chocolate and creating a whole new path across the world. He just can’t be bothered so she figures she’ll travel the world to prove that it works. Unfortunately her reindeer crash and while they are being healed by a doctor she is trapped in New York. Well she figures that at least she can help out with the working conditions for the children and even meets up with a lady named Sadie who is protesting for women’s rights. There is only one man who can stand in Mrs. Claus’s way now and that’s Mr. Tavish. He is the owner of the largest toy company in New York and what he says goes. Can she defeat him?

So what makes Mr. Tavish special is that he can talk back to anyone. When Mrs. Claus tries to make a plan like having the children go on strike or not working hard then he immediately counters by punishing them with not being allowed to leave work early. He’s always one step ahead of her and that’s crazy because usually she is on top of things. There’s even a scene in the climax where he takes over the stables and basically prevented the reindeer from being used. Sure, Rudolph wasn’t around but he still basically stalemated all of them which is quite impressive. Ultimately the powers of friendship were what deterred him but physically nobody was about to stop this guy. That’s why I say that he was real impressive.

Meanwhile Sadie did a good job of petitioning and protesting all by herself for ages until Mrs. Claus showed up. Sadie was determined and wasn’t about to let anyone get in her way. That is absolutely the kind of dedication that you want to see from any character. It was really a credit to her character and she did a good job. It only makes the other characters look bad in how literally nobody was around to support her. You’d think that at least someone else would have taken a risk. Every great movement starts with one person though and Sadie can be proud to say that she was that person this time.

As for Mrs. Claus, I thought she was a solid character. She can be a bit naïve at times as New York takes her by surprise at first. I suppose everyone at the North Pole are rather nice and even tempered so she wasn’t ready for all the big antagonists here. That said, even if it takes her a while to get past this, ultimately she does well. She also gets points for bravery in going on the trip by herself when Santa was too busy with his work. She also couldn’t have predicted that some of the kids would be petty traitors who were too busy looking after themselves to help out with her plans. A lot of times these plans only work when everyone bands together and that was not the case here.

Santa looks bad here though. He seriously could have heard Mrs. Claus out about her plan instead of staying buried in the books. Then apparently he didn’t realize she was missing for several days? No that’s a really bad look for the guy and it was only when the hot chocolate tasted bad that he noticed. I liked when he started walking over to the elf as if to threaten him but sadly that scene wasn’t handled well as he came off as more confused and unsure of himself than threatening. That could have been a really hype scene otherwise but it just wasn’t to be.

This film is also part musical but none of the songs really land. They’re all old but also rather slow paced. A lot of times the songs in non-musical films tend to beat the musical ones and this continues along here as well. I wouldn’t say that any of them are bad or anything like that but they aren’t quite holding their own here. They don’t enhance the film and it has to succeed in spite of them rather than because of them which is a crucial difference. Also we missed an easy lay-up to see Mrs. Santa Claus learn about pizza. I get that she was in a poor area so that might have been tough and maybe pizza wasn’t even around yet in which case I would cut the film some slack but that would have been cool. It’s a staple of New York after all. You would almost forget that the film is in New York considering there aren’t any real landmarks after the Statue of Liberty. I guess that’s how old it is since usually I can recognize it right out of the jump.

Overall, Mrs. Santa Claus is a good movie. I would have liked it to have been a little more daring with lots of iconic moments all the way through though. Maybe have her defeat the villain at the end instead of talking to him or have Santa appear in a rage mode and take the guy down. I could have done without the songs too. It’s not a bad film to watch just since it’s rare to see Mrs. Santa Claus around and there’s nothing really negative to say about the film. It’s short too so it’s over quickly but I would just say that we haven’t yet seen the definitive Mrs. Santa Claus film yet. One day we will get one and we will know it when we see it.

Overall 6/10

Prancer Review

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When you think of Prancer you’re thinking of a fantastical adventure like with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and his friends. Not a more emotional film about a kid who wants to do the right thing. I think this film had some potential but ultimately the characters can be more on the annoying side and Prancer’s role wasn’t quite big enough. It’s an okay movie but it’s not going to hold its own with the big Christmas hits.

The movie starts with Jessica showing off her reindeer knowledge and having a good time with her friend Carol. She ends up seeing a mysterious reindeer around but it vanishes before anyone else can notice it. Eventually it appears again and she realizes that this is Prancer. Somehow he got injured and has been split up from Santa and the rest of the reindeer. Jessica figures she will nurse him back to health and then set up a meeting spot with Santa to get the guy to take this reindeer back into the group. This won’t be easy though as her father John is going through hard times economically and he is thinking about giving Jessica over to his sister Sarah. Jessica is not happy about this at all but what can she do about it? Also, can she keep the reindeer secret for long?

The deck is absolutely stacked against Jessica here but she never gives up. That’s just not the way she does things. My first main issue with the film is that John can be rather mean the whole time. He never feels very understanding towards Jessica even when she is doing her best. Jessica makes mistakes sure, but she always apologizes and is very respectful towards her father. Usually in these films you see the kid being disrespectful and never apologizing so when he’s still harsh to her despite this it just feels off. The film overplayed its hand with John and makes him far too unlikable so it’s hard to root for him at all or even sympathize to the extent that you normally would. He’s basically an antagonist for most of the movie.

Then you have Jessica’s brother Steve who is also rather mean the whole time. He blackmails Jessica into doing his dishes for a year so he won’t tell their father about the reindeer. Sure he gets his emotional scenes later on where he stands by Jessica but he was a bit overblown in the opening scenes. Surely he could have made the demands a little better than that right? So I think this boils down to the writer where they wanted to put Jessica in a tough corner but they just weren’t good at holding back. So instead of the characters just being a little rude and setting things up for the heart warming second half, they accidentally made them really mean.

It’s a tough balance but you have to walk a careful line in these films or you make the characters go too far past the point of no return and that’s exactly what happened here. The film ends up suffering for this a bit as a result. Then you have the drama with Jessica and Carol as Jessica takes everything super personally. In this case you feel bad for Carol since she didn’t realize she was offending Jessica by saying she didn’t believe in God and Heaven. Jessica’s reactions were certainly not very graceful at all and this is one time where you didn’t really sympathize with her. She never really has a full apology to Carol on this either or at least not to the extent that she should. Carol really didn’t do anything wrong but got treated badly for most of the film.

Then there’s the neighbor Mrs McFarlane who was reasonable enough but I’m not really sure what the point of her character was. When you think about it she didn’t really do a whole lot here. I suppose we got to see that she wasn’t so bad after all but if you cut her out of the movie then nothing really changes. I expected her to have a much bigger role in the second half/climax because that’s how the setup felt. Not saying it’s objectively a bad decision to have her vanish but it just felt like an odd one.

Prancer also should have done more. Of course during the film you are meant to wonder if he is just a normal reindeer or not and that mystery keeps up until the film definitively makes a statement in the final scene. I liked the way that it ended so that worked out for me but I definitely would have given Prancer more to do. Either he was getting into mischief at the house or being kidnapped which isn’t the best role for this guy. If anything Prancer holds the film back as a result.

With a Christmas movie like this you are looking for an uplifting adventure where you can have a lot of fun. That’s the whole point you could say right? Well this one just isn’t super happy most of the time. You feel sad when Prancer is on screen since he’s hurt and injured. Then you feel sad when everyone is picking on Jessica or when Jessica picks on Carol. There are more sad scenes than happy ones here and as a result that makes the movie a bit lopsided. At the end of the day you could call it more of an uplifting film by the end but it doesn’t consistently grab that tone. So instead you have a balance where half of the time the movie just isn’t very fun.

The writing is decent even if the writers don’t know how to make some characters antagonistic without being over the top mean. With better writing I think you could have really done well with this movie. Perhaps have the main characters be grown ups instead even if it does mean rewriting the approach a bit differently. You could have succeeded with the kids though, it just would have taken more effort. Because of that I’d end up putting this film in the middle. I can’t picture myself ever re watching it over another Christmas movie but I still wouldn’t call it bad. I think that would be too strong.

Overall, Prancer may not be the film you were expecting but you can still get some good moments out of it. I found parts of the film to be a little too mean spirited so that can make it difficult to get to the ending though. It’s a fairly unique film as I wasn’t even totally sure what kind of vibe it was going for at times. I suppose you have to give it credit for trying to be really serious while also balancing the Christmas cheer, it just didn’t pull this off. Only watch this one if you really want to see some Reindeer in live action but otherwise you should watch the original Rudolph movie.

Overall 5/10

The Year Without a Santa Claus Review

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Time for a Christmas special about Santa and we already saw that the last one didn’t fare quite as well as the average special. Unfortunately, that continues as The Year Without a Santa Claus may have ended up being the least interesting Christmas Special to date. Perhaps Santa Claus just isn’t cut out to be the main character of a film. It could also just be a bad roll of the dice and then he can get em all next year.

Well, the plot is pretty self explanatory from the title. Santa is feeling tired and sick this year. His doctor lets him know that nobody cares about Santa or Christmas anymore and Santa quickly buys this story. He decides to take a day off and his two elves are sad about it. Ms. Claus thinks about being Santa herself, but ultimately decides not to do it. Her Elves must now find some Christmas spirit in South Town to show Santa that there is still hope. One thing leads to another and one of Santa’s reindeer is placed at the pound. Can the Elves make it snow in Southtown so that the Mayor can believe them and free the Reindeer? It’ll be a pretty dicey challenge for the heroes.

Well, the biggest problem with the film is that it’s simply uninteresting. Santa isn’t really the main character since he’s taking a break so the two elves…I guess I’ll just say their names, Jingle and Jangle must team up with Ms. Claus to be the main characters. They mean well, but they are definitely not main character material. Jingle and Jangle making mistakes and one of them beating up the other one gets old very quickly and Ms. Claus is a nice person, but her type of character isn’t great for the lead. She’s the nice old lady that everyone is actually afraid of and I’ll admit that I’ve never been a fan of this kind of character. It’s decent comic relief I suppose, but the film can certainly do better.

Things get a bit better once Snow Miser and his brother Heat Miser show up. First we have to listen to their songs of course and then we get to see a display of their abilities. I think it’s safe to say that Heat Miser would probably win in a fight, but Snow Miser is a lot more reasonable and he is definitely the better character. This guy doesn’t miss a beat and he’s always ready to throw a little snow your way. These two added a supernatural effect to the special and then we got to meet their boss.

Once again, the film tripped a little in how it handled the situation. Mother Nature was a being that scared even Ms. Claus and everyone talked about how tough and vicious she was. Then…she’s actually a really nice lady who scares the two Misers. It was not entirely unexpected, but it was still not a great twist and you’ll probably wince a few times. “This can’t be happening” is something that you might say as she forces the Misers to compromise.

Even the ending is rather odd as the moral is that the kids decide to give Santa his own holiday so he can rest. It’s all going well until one kid can’t hold her feelings back any longer and guilt trips Santa by letting him know that her Christmas is going to be terrible without him. The other kids start to cry too until they finally force Santa to don his old costume and take up the tradition once more. The holiday is cancelled and you wonder what the point of it all was. What just happened here?

The film certainly made me drowzy as it powered through all of the tropes imaginable. At least the Reindeer got a happy ending since everyone else wasn’t doing very well at the time. I will admit that the Mayor was a pretty great character since he mocked the heroes until the bitter end. He even danced with a little kid to show just how tough he was when he let the elves know that he wouldn’t release the Reindeer. He’s just that kind of guy, he’d rather let the animal stay at the pound than find him an owner. It’s the kind of thing that could definitely make him unlikable, but I like to think that this is a nice pound where the animals are cared for.

Overall, This film was a bit of a miss compared to the other Christmas specials. There is no sense of wonder or amazement here. You can’t even really call it a cheerful/happy film. Santa definitely doesn’t look good here and the film never really knew where it wanted to go with the plot. Ms. Claus’ decision to abandon her Santa adventure was so sudden that you know a last second script re write must have happened. If only the characters had been more interesting, the film could have had some hope. I can’t recommend this film and you should watch A Charlie Brown Christmas instead.

Overall 4/10

Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town Review

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This is one of those old Christmas stories that didn’t become quite as legendary as Rudolph or Frosty. It’s still big enough that you will likely have heard of it though and who doesn’t want to learn about Santa’s origin story? I don’t think that it holds up quite as well as the others though and Santa just isn’t as much of an endearing lead as he could have been. Still, the film is a little more serious than the others and the stakes are much higher than usual.

A nice guy by the name of Mr. Kluger is getting ready to deliver some gifts when he realizes that a lot of children are asking questions about Santa Claus. Since he is the resident expert on the subject he decided to take some time out of his busy schedule to humor them. He tells them the story of Santa’s origin. Santa was left at the doorstep of some nice dwarves and they decided to call him Kris Kringle. They liked to make presents, but they could never deliver them because of a sinister Warlock who lived in the mountains. Time went by and Santa grew up enough so that he could defeat the Warlock. He set off, but little did he know that the true threat was waiting to pounce!

It’s a pretty cool plot on paper and it’s filled with twists, but it didn’t hold my attention quite the same way that the others did. It’s simply less charming and it’s not filled with wonder and excitement like the others. It may be in part because of the stop motion animation though because that style makes the world seem rather bleak in universe. The snow is not quite as majestic even though you can definitely tell that it is in fact snow. The animation isn’t bad for its time though and it’s not hard to watch, but stop motion is certainly one of my least favorite styles of animation.

Burgermeister is the big villain of the film and would you be shocked if I said that he doesn’t end up turning into a good guy by the end? This guy wasn’t going to fold so easily and you can practically see his sinister nature the instant that you hear his name. I know that Burgers are usually synonymous with excellent, but the meister part is what should make his name ominous. He’s not very powerful…he’s just a normal guy, but he has a lot of influence. As a villain, he’s actually quite good and he’s always munching on something. It keeps him ready for what comes next.

Santa Claus is a nice enough guy. He decides that he is going to get the toys to the kids one way or the other and he sets off on a very dangerous quest from which he knows that there may be no return. It’s the kind of heroism that you may remember from the good ole days. He’s pretty selfless and he lets bygones be bygones with the Warlock in the end. His reasoning for only giving gifts once a year by the end is pretty sound since everyone starts to weaken eventually. He’s a nice guy, but I still stand by my claim that he’s not quite as good as Frosty. He’s simply not as charismatic.

The Winter Warlock is an imposing figure who becomes sympathetic as the film goes on. It all happens so fast that you’ll probably be suspicious of the Warlock for a while, but he ultimately seems genuine. That being said, he doesn’t look very good considering that he has a nice array of magical abilities. By the end, we find out that most of his spells are actually pretty useless in a fight and breaking out of a simple prison is beyond his capabilities. He may have powers, which makes him stronger than most of the other Christmas special villains, but it’s still not saying a whole lot.

Jessica has a twist hear that you will start to realize as the film goes on. She plays the main heroine, which may be a first for the Christmas stories. Frosty’s Winter Wonderland had one, but I’m thinking that the title came after this one anyway. She plays a key role when she reminds the Warlock that he has a lot of magic so he takes out the corn. Otherwise, the heroes had basically given up and they wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Her screen time is a little limited, but everyone’s ultimately was since the film is still pretty short.

I think that one more factor which impacted the film was that Santa Claus wasn’t all powerful here. It’s always fun to see him being portrayed as an invincible being who can do just about anything. If we’re going to make a legend, we may as well make him an invincible one right? Santa should have inherited the powers of previous or future Santas in the climax and materialized some kind of super gift. It may be asking for a lot, but that would have been a good way to end the film on a pretty high note.

Overall, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town is a pretty decent film, but it’s one that could have been a little better. Santa Claus just doesn’t draw a crowd the way that his Christmas counterparts do, but it was nice to see how it all began for him. Having a villain with the word “Burger” in his name was pure genius and the Warlock made for a unique villain since most of them didn’t have magic powers back in the day. The special is well over an hour so it won’t take too long to finish it. Considering this, I think it’s probably a good bet to check it out as we are not too far past Christmas, but you could also watch the original Frosty The Snowman as a good alternative. After all, you’ll want to stay frosty during these cold days right?

Overall 5/10