As a self-proclaimed cinephile, I have seen many Christmas movies, but many more still escape me. Take Jack Frost until not long ago; I only heard about it maybe once before, a long time ago. But it recently popped up on one of the streaming services I pay for (Amazon Prime), and I thought, why not; I might as well expand my horizons with a Christmas film. And with a cast like Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston and Mark Addy, what could go wrong?
And honestly, for the first 40/50 minutes, Jack Frost was a delightful, even if slightly predictable, film. We have the typical “dad works too much and might miss Christmas!” plotline, but here is the thing. Michael Keaton was (and I would argue still is) a charismatic dude, to the point where we should dislike him as the audience (after all, he’s bailing on his son!) I didn’t. What’s more, I understood him, and those scenes we got with him and his son (played by Joseph Cross) felt real because Michael’s character was never too mean/shouty about his mistakes; he sat down with his son and talked to him. That might seem like nothing, but in these Christmas movies, where we usually see this type of conflict, the parent (or the child) can go way too over the top for the main dispute to mean anything.
I also appreciated the inventive cinematography, mainly the snowball fight from the beginning of the film, shot like a war movie, even with some camera angles from the perspective of a snowball. Again, little things, but as they say, they do make the difference because it’s easier to stand out from such an overcrowded market, which in this case are your cookie-cutter Christmas films that are not only the same, but they all tend to look the same too. So I appreciated it when Jack Frost was at least going for something more to latch on to.
The moment I became slightly detached from the film was when Michael Keaton returned as the snowman, aka Jack Frost. That was weird because that should be the main point of this film; dad gets killed and returns the next year as a snowman to make things right. But that was when the film took more of a forced comedy route and started to look and feel more formulaic.
Not to mention the snowman CGI is slightly unnerving. I don’t get spooked easily, but I can understand why some people hate this movie purely because of the CGI alone. One needs to see it in action to comprehend it, as it’s not like it is a creepy design for all of the film, but there are some scenes where the snowman looks more menacing…? It’s hard to describe it correctly; it’s one of those “you just gotta see it to believe it” types of situation.
And these two things took Jack Frost down a peg for me because I don’t know whether I am getting softer as I get older, but I loved the first 40/50 minutes. Before the dad died, I was enjoying the film, whether it was Michael Keaton’s charisma or the stunning beauty of Kelly Preston (it is strange to write about her in the past tense). I was enjoying myself and thought this could potentially become one of those Christmas films I would put on every Christmas season from now on. Now that won’t probably happen, but it’s still a solid movie, and this is where I need to make my last point.
Don’t pay any attention to the rating of this film. For some bizarre reason, Jack Frost is currently rated 5.4/10 on IMDb and only 19% on RottenTomatoes. Sure, the movie is far from flawless, and it can be overly simplistic and sentimental, mainly in the second half, but come on! That is way too low. When I checked those scores after finishing the film, I had to make sure there wasn’t some different version everybody but me watched, but no, most people don’t enjoy this film at all. I would like to know why, especially since we have gotten many, many, many worse Christmas movies that don’t have Michael and Kelly in the titular roles. They also (probably) don’t have a creepy CGI snowman in them too, but that’s beside the point… 😉
Overall, Jack Frost is better than expected Christmas film. I believe; if you can get over the CGI that can be a bit too much at times and some overly sentimental moments, you might enjoy yourself. I can’t say this enough, for some reason, I really liked Michael in this role, at least before he transferred into the snowman because that man is a walking charisma. If you are like me and have never seen Jack Frost, this Christmas would be a good time to fix it. Don’t expect anything spectacular, just your good old-fashioned Hollywood Christmas fluff that is sometimes needed.
Wishing you all Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and whatever else people do or don’t celebrate!
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke
