Santa Claus is a decent movie with a reasonably well developed storyline and a talented cast, although no one ever gets to show their full potential as an actor. It certainly has good moments and is a very nice Christmas movie that is very strong with the spirit of the season, it is certainly a lot of fun for anyone under the age of ten. The highlight of the entire film for me was John Lithgow, who I believe steals every scene as the villain B.Z., he's ruthless and completely unlikeable, it's an exaggerated performance that easily could have been hurrendous, but Lithgow made it work. My main problem with the film is that the story never really goes anywhere, it's almost two hours long and the adventure only really kicks off at about 75 minutes in, and is resolved by minute 95, the conflict is small and very simple, we never actually lose hope and feel as if the hero may not succeed. Every single character lacks depth or proper arch, none of them are established, not even the title character, we know very little about him before he is made become the Father of Christmas, and Patch the elf is poorly written, despite a good performance from Dudley Moore, the character starts out normal, eventually becomes evil for unknown reasons, and randomly becomes good again, it made little sense to be and it was clear he was just a poorly developed character. It's worth a look if you see it on television, but Santa Claus is definitely not a movie I would insist on watching every Christmas, and you shouldn't go out of your way to see it.
A woodcutter soon becomes Santa Claus and must save Christmas from an evil toy manufacturer.
Best Performance: John Lithgow
A woodcutter soon becomes Santa Claus and must save Christmas from an evil toy manufacturer.
Best Performance: John Lithgow