Santa Claus

Santa Claus; Fantasy comedy, USA/ UK, 1985; D: Jeannot Szwarc, S: David Huddleston, Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, Burgess Meredith, Judy Cornwell, Carrie Kei Heim

Somewhere in the 14th century, an middle aged man, Claus, and his wife Anya meet the small Elves for the first time in their life and decide to found a toy factory on the North Pole, in order to deliver presents to kids every Christmas. In the winter of 1985, the kids all became very spoiled and their greed destroyed in Santa Claus the will for further favors: he falls in depression, while one of his Elves, Patch, decides to make a business out of selling his magical lollipops, that cause the people to fly, to the evil toy seller B.Z., which threatens to destroy the magic of Christmas. Yet two kids manage to save everything.

Jeannot Szwarc didn't manage to conjure up a good film out of this Holiday children's flick on the often theme of Santa Claus. It's a matter of a boring and extremely superficial fairy tale that needlessly coasted 50 million $, a laxly story that is unsuccessful and uninspiring on every level in it's pursuit of a back story of the famous Santa Claus. David Huddleston as the title hero, Dudley Moore as the runaway Elf Patch and John Lithgow as the businessman B.Z. are all solid in their roles, but their characters and pale relationships are not developed at all and simply don't wake up any interest of the viewers. There is very little in this film that holds it together - there is no style, humor, emotions or magic - and thus the only thing that remains is to stare at the opulent set design.

Grade:+