I really wasn't expecting much from this Netflix holiday offering of a couple years back, though I did think the casting of Kurt Russell as Santa Claus was kind of a neat idea. Though the first 15 minutes or so were pretty paint by numbers, even manipulative (the film starts with a montage of a families old Christmas home movies being watched by a roughly 11 year old girl, the first line she utters when the videos are done is "miss you dad'), it picks up considerably after the arrival of Old Saint Nick, who is decidedly not fat.
So this is a 'rediscovering the Christmas spirt / fantasy adventure film' and even though it's hardly an exact parallel the movie it reminded me of the most was Tim Allen's 'The Santa Clause' from the mid 90's. Like that film this movie offers some creative, lightly revisionist ideas on the Santa legend, which I mostly really liked, from the design of the sled, to Santa's using 'wormholes' to travel around the world so quickly. The elves in this film are certainly a different take, furry little CG critters that I though a mixed bag (and who first appear inside of a bag).
Kurt Russell is game and the two kids (Judah Lewis and Darby Camp) give solid on point performances. The film thankfully doesn't try too hard, it's kind of lose and not in a hurry even though there is a major time crunch element moving the story along. What really won me over more then anything was one scene, Santa's musical number in the jail, it was seemingly out of nowhere and has a really fun winking sensibility too it. So 'The Christmas Chronicles' is solid stuff, perhaps the best family Christmas film since 'Elf', hardly a shabby achievement. ***
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