If you are new to this blog, you might not know that I am not from an English speaking country. I am from the Czech Republic. What does it mean? Well, for starters, sometimes, my sentences and syntax might be “a bit” weird to follow (but I promise you I am working on that). But more to the point, I come from a country that even though we have our own (and quite rich) cinematic history and many Christmas movies, we still love most of what Americans love. The best example is Home Alone (1990) and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1991). I grew up watching those every Christmas and love them both equally (I know many don’t like the second one as much, and one day, I will review them both). And there might be more movies coming to the “foreground” in recent years because of the internet and streaming services. But there are still many films Americans consider classics, and I have never seen them. I would always hear about them being a movie lover, and now, I am making a conscious effort to go through them. The Santa Clause trilogy is the perfect example of Xmas movies I’d always hear about but never watched.

The Santa Clause is one of those films that is so 90s it can make you cringe sometimes. It has all the tropes you’d expect from the mid 90s Xmas movie. Dad is all over the place yet successful at his work; mum is the reasonable one with her new boyfriend, whose only issue is not being our protagonist, and, in the middle, you have their son. Who believes in the power of Christmas, Santa, and everything around that. Except in this film, we go one step further, and the dad (portrayed by Tim Allen) manages to… kill Santa (but it was an accident, so I guess that makes it ok?), so he takes his place and becomes the new Santa. And that’s pretty much the film.

And here’s the thing – my first paragraph about movies you grew up on, especially Christmas movies, matters now. Because that might be why this one missed me, I could see all the elements being present and working as they should. The movie has the Xmas magic, especially towards the end, where it gets a bit touching, which was nice. But it never hit me in the same way other movies did and still do. And I don’t know whether it’s because I didn’t grow up watching this, or maybe it’s because The Santa Clause might be one of the weaker Xmas movies…?

I like Tim Allen (all politics and his scandals aside), but I never “loved” him. It’s always a pleasure watching Judge Reinhold because, for me, he’s one of those underrated actors who is brilliant playing supporting characters. You will remember his face from different movies, but he never takes you out of either of his films because there is something about him, and he can play funny, confused and a bit dickish characters well.

I also feel like this movie might be just a bit too bloated. It is only 97 minutes, but I feel like there isn’t much story here, so they could have improved the pacing by cutting a good ten minutes or so, and that would’ve improved the film massively. Because it felt just a tad bit long and not that funny. I know that Xmas films aren’t complicated and usually are pretty straightforward. But in this film, it seemed like there isn’t much more happening beyond the “Tim Allen becomes Santa and needs to convince everyone around him he isn’t going insane” storyline. And since I have already mentioned them, both Home Alone films are longer than this film, with the second one being two hours long, but they also have much more meat on their bones. They both are funnier, have much more going on, and if you boil both of them down, they have pretty much the same message as this film (about Xmas and family, what is truly important). The more I am writing about The Santa Clause, the more I am convinced that this movie is a simple Christmas movie with nothing much going for it. And hey, that’s perfectly fine, especially if you grew up watching this film as I did with Home Alone movies, you wouldn’t probably mind that, and you will “forgive” more things than me.

Overall, The Santa Clause is a film that won’t be joining my “I need to watch this every Xmas” collection of movies. It’s not bad by any means, once it gets going, it’s pretty good, and the ending is charming, but for its runtime, it drags on, the jokes mostly fell flat for me, and even Tim Allen isn’t providing us with “something special” that would intrigue me to come back. I will watch the other two films, with me being a completionist and all, and I wonder whether I will like either of them more. Or whether I might find a new appreciation for them; once I’ve watched them all.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Where to even start with this one…

Let me clarify one thing – I went into this movie expecting “lesser” film experience, as I have heard stories about how bad Street Fighter is, but deep down, I know I have a soft spot for cheesy, “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of movies, especially from the 80’s and 90’s, as those are the movies I grew up on. But with this one, it’s just so over the top bad when comes to… well, everything, I can’t even enjoy it for how bad it is. There are now stories how Jean-Claude Van Damme was… not on his behaviour on the set, to put it very mildly (and you don’t even have to google hard, it’s all there under Trivia section on IMDb) and how because of it, everything was delayed, or rushed… and you can definitely tell.

I think because of Street Fighter I have finally realised, why is it that I can enjoy some “so bad it’s good” movies and not others. That’s because those movies are not equal and the “enjoyable” bad movies in my eyes, have most of it right, but they might have one or two elements that’s dragging it down (usually it’s the over the top acting, cheesy dialogue, bad CGI etc.) But as long as all the other aspects of that movie somehow work, you (or I) tend to forgive those movies, as you can acknowledge that sure, the dialogue/acting/CGI is bad, but the other elements are alright, and overall that “spice” of badness makes it somehow more enjoyable. It’s like having a scar on your face. Sure, when you spot it the first time, you think to yourself “damn, that’s not supposed to be there, I wonder what happened” but ultimately, it gives you extra character (perfect example is Michael Kenneth Williams – great character actor, who made his real life scar into a benefit, rather than disadvantage, making it work for him and giving him and all his roles that extra level of character) and people love character. But if most/all the elements of your movie are somehow wrong or not working (as with this movie), it’s really hard to root for this movie, or to enjoy it for being bad.

And almost nothing works here – from over the top performances, to bad CGI, bad dialogue, really boring storyline (I mean, it should be street fighting movie, why do we deal with warlords and army…? Why?) and the only bright spot is Raul Julia, who is putting in an alright performance. I love him as an actor and he is by far the best one in this movie, but I do believe most of the “praise” he’s getting on the Internet, is due to the fact of his unfortunate passing and the struggle he had on the set, as he knew and everybody around him knew, he was dying from stomach cancer. And from the stories I have read, despite everything he was going through, he was the perfect professional on the set and that is admirable. So what I am trying to say is yes, he is definitely BY FAR the best actor in this movie and you can tell he’s the only one, who kind of realises “the quality” of the movie he was in, so he was at least trying to have fun with it, but don’t get fooled by some people on the Internet, that he somehow saved this movie. Unfortunately, he wasn’t that great. But more importantly, it wasn’t his job to save this movie, or to make sure it was watchable and he is not the reason this movie ended up the way it did.

Who I also wanted to mention is Ming-Na Wen who is playing Chun-Li. I thought she looked familiar, but couldn’t place her face, so I looked her up on IMDb and not only she is “Fennec Shand” from The Mandalorian (2019 -, my reviews can be found here for the first season and here for the second season), but she’s aged like a fine wine, as she was around 30 when she made Street Fighter, that means she will turn 60 in 2 years and if you see her in The Mandalorian, you would not have guessed it. My only wish is to look half as good as her when I will be her age. Also, just an important side note, her acting is definitely much better in The Mandalorian than in this movie, but that almost goes without saying, as I don’t think she had plenty to work with here in the first place.

I honestly went into Street Fighter with my brain “switched off”, hoping to enjoy another cheesy action movie from the decade, that produced a lot of them (and most are beloved by me). What I got instead was a cocaine powered weirdness. Because you would at least think, if there was plenty of cocaine involved, the movie would be fun and fast paced, right? No, it’s the opposite on both fronts, it’s really slow, for what it is and really boring. I am not saying this lightly, because I usually don’t like remakes, but this should be prime material for a remake – something that exists, we have a film version that’s objectively bad, so let’s try to re-do it, but this time with people who actually love the material, who love the game(s), who care about those characters. Based on the trailer, it looks like we might actually be getting really good Mortal Kombat (2021) or at least that’s what this trailer is promising, so maybe, if it actually is a good movie, maybe we can try to make this one right too?

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke