The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
Categories: Christmas Reviews, Featured, Movie Reviews
Written By: Eric Jensen
Rating: 
The Law of Diminution of Sequel Quality is on full display with The Santa Clause 3. It’s a movie that’s actually pretty funny, in that family-friendly way, and features downright hilarious performances from some of the cast members new to the series, but it’s also a movie that just isn’t any good. While the enjoyable comedy is there, the emotional content, that “oh, there go the cockles of my heart” stuff that made the first two movies succeed, is totally absent.
Our third meeting with Santa Claus/Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) takes place almost entirely at the North Pole and involves two separate stories. In one thread, Santa’s very pregnant wife Carol (Wendy Crewson) is feeling a bit morose and lonely as a result of her husband’s busy schedule at Christmastime. In an attempt to cheer her up, Santa agrees to bring her parents (Ann-Margret and Alan Arkin) to stay with them for the holiday—though of course the illusion must be maintained that Scott’s just a toy company executive and that their operation is in Canada.
While these in-law antics are going on, Jack Frost (Martin Short) is making himself something of a bother, as well. He doesn’t much like being Jack Frost—he doesn’t get a holiday of his own, little kids have never even heard of him—and he longs for something more grandiose. When he finds out about an Escape Clause in the contract that made Scott Calvin into Santa in the first place, Jack Frost does all he can to trick Scott into giving up the position of Kris Kringle. Frost intends to take the job himself, and he intends to run a very different kind of North Pole.
And in those two preceding paragraphs you’ve read much about what’s wrong with this movie. Mrs. Claus is pregnant, Jack Frost is trying to ruin things and depose Santa. These elements probably could work in a different kind of movie. But in a light-hearted family comedy, Santa’s magical world at the North Pole shouldn’t include such things as sabotage, coups d’état and—somehow most disturbing of all—sexual reproduction.
In the first Santa Clause film, they got this right. Most of the scenes took place in the real world that we all know, and so it was okay for them to include anything we’re familiar with from that world. But the other world—the world of magic and joy and nonstop-Christmas that is the North Pole—was treated differently, immune to the thousand petty problems we regular people deal with.
In The Santa Clause 3, the North Pole is no different than Scranton, New Jersey.
So the very foundation of the film was far too flawed for it to have ever been good. The execution of the thing is what saves the picture from being zero stars all the way. Alan Arkin as Santa’s father-in-law and Martin Short as Jack Frost are both hilarious. They’re always unmistakably Alan Arkin and Martin Short rather than Bud Newman and Jack Frost, but why quibble? They do their best with the material, and their best is very good indeed.
And then there’s Ann-Margret. Absolutely as sexy as ever. I probably don’t need to remind you that my obsession with Ann-Margret goes back many years, far into my youth, and those earliest feverish adolescent desires have abated not a whit since then. Oh, Ann-Margret. I realize that you’ve been married for over forty years, but if you ever decide what you really want is to run away with an impoverished, homely fatso, I’m here for you.
Despite the positives of the performances and the many successful jokes, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause just has too many negatives to overcome. I hope it’s the last we’ll hear of this franchise. I hope the series will be allowed to end with whatever integrity it still has intact, with our fond memories of the first movie (and even the second) relatively untainted.
But it’s a Disney property, so I ain’t holding my breath. Integrity and untainted fond memories aren’t exactly the way that company does business.
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