Santa Clause 3, The: The Escape Clause (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Here's yet another example of the law of diminishing returns. "The Santa Clause" from 1994 was charming and original, a Christmas classic. "The Santa Clause 2" from 2002 pretty much repeated the formula, sucking much of the life out of it in the process. "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause" from 2006 not only sucks the life out of the story, it replaces it with a kind of cruelness that borders on turning the whole affair into a holiday zombie flick. I found this one sorta scary--in the very worst way.

You remember the story: A special clause in the Santa contract forced ordinary-guy Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) into becoming Santa Claus twelve years earlier when the previous Santa fell off a roof and was unable to continue. Once Scott and his family got used to the idea, though, it wasn't so bad. Now, he's firmly entrenched in the Santa business and loving every minute of it.

But a few things have changed. For one, Scott has married Principal Carol Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell), who is at present Mrs. Carol Calvin (and Mrs. Carol Claus). For a second thing, Mrs. Claus is pregnant. For a third, the Clauses are living at the North Pole more or less permanently.

Nevertheless, Carol is feeling a bit lonely up there with only her husband and the little elves (or elfs, as one of their signs reads) for company. So Scott arranges to bring Carol's parents to visit. Ann-Margret and Alan Arkin, newcomers to the series, play the parents, Ann-Margret still looking young enough to be Allen's wife, and Arkin much too good for the material. However, Scott doesn't want to reveal to them his Santa persona, so he pretends he is just an ordinary toymaker in Canada, the North Pole is his factory, and all Canadians are very small people. Uh huh.

Meanwhile, back again are Scott's ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), her feel-good psychiatrist husband Neil (Judge Reinhold), their daughter Lucy (Liliana Mumy), and Scott's son Charlie (Eric Lloyd, now about twenty but playing a teen); and you recall they all know about Scott's identity as Santa. Still, they have never been to the North Pole before, and they want to go, too. It's a rather gimmicky way to get all of Scott's family together at the Pole at the same time. Not that it helps.

OK, enter the snake. There's this Council of Legendary Figures that you'll also remember, composed of the Tooth Fairy (Art La Fleur), the Sandman (Michael Dorn), Cupid (Kevin Pollak), Mother Nature (Aisha Tyler), the Easter Bunny (Jay Thomas), and Father Time (Peter Boyle, in one of his final roles; such a shame as he was better as Scott's boss). Well, the new movie tells us the Council also includes Jack Frost (Martin Short), and he's a stinker. Jack is jealous of Santa's popularity and wants to horn in on the action. Therefore, he plots to highjack Christmas and sabotage the North Pole in order to wrest control of the place and the position for himself.

That's about it, only Short's Jack Frost is so creepy, so slimy, so realistically evil that it puts a damper on any possible fun the movie could have conjured up. At first, the film is just tedious; then when Jack shows up, it becomes downright mean spirited, and the disasters Frost imposes on the toy factory are not at all funny but frightening. It's not exactly the mood you want to establish for a lighthearted Christmas comedy.