When Scott Calvin took over as Santa Claus in the first film back in 1994, everything seemed to be going swimmingly for the new big man at the North Pole. His son was growing up back with his ex-wife, he was finding his place as leader of the Elves, and was enjoying his job as a bringer of joy to millions. At the start of 2002's The Santa Clause 2 we start to see that his life of ease is starting to unravel, and if he doesn't act quickly, he could lose his position as Santa Claus forever. His son Charlie has started acting out at school for an unknown reason, and due to several pranks has ended up on Santa's naughty list. To make matters worse, two of the higher ranking elves have discovered something else of consequence on the original Santa "contract" that could affect everyone. It seems that if Santa isn't married by this upcoming Christmas, he will lose his position.

With the future of Christmas handing in the balance, and only a short month to solve all of the problems he is going through, Santa (Scott) must go back to the U.S. and find a wife. It doesn't seem like the easiest of tasks since he has been off of the "market" for so long, but he has to give it a try if he wants to save his position. Even worse than that, he only has a limited amount of magic to use on his trip, and if he exhausts it, he again won't be able to return to the North Pole. It seems everything is working against him, and his son is continuing to get in trouble as he goes in pursuit of his new wife. If they don't find a solution soon, there could be dire consequences, and so goes the general plot of the film. This isn't the most interesting of plot lines, and even though there was a lot of humor in the setting-up of everything, I think that everything was being held together by a very slim thread.

Tim Allen has returned as the main character Scott Calvin, and he is once again hilarious in this part. Many new facets of humor are thrown into the mix, including council meetings with Father Time, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Ferry, SandMan, and Mother Nature that had me laughing for a short while. There were also many other instances where I was laughing out loud because some of the jokes were just that funny to me. There was a notable drop off in the supporting cast in my opinion, and the acting talent could have been used a little more if they had given a few more of those roles a bigger number of lines. As it is, Allen is forced to carry the entire movie basically on his shoulders alone, and while that works at times, there are other times where the story bogs down and doesn't move past its younger demographic.

The Santa Clause 2 was a wildly funny movie at times, with a lot of laughs that made it worth watching the first time around. I could indeed see myself laughing out loud to many of them the second time around as well, but some of the plot devices didn't entirely work for me in the whole scheme of things. I don't want to place too many spoilers in my review, but lets just say what takes place back at the North Pole while Santa is away needed a lot of work in my opinion. This is where the movie suffered a little bit, and caused some of the ending scenes to not work quite as well as they could have. Some of the better moments included a new reindeer named Chet that was just bring trained, and how he starts to become a reindeer for Santa Clause. All in all a funny movie, I think that this is one that could appeal to many different ages, but is primarily geared towards the younger audience. When all is said and done, I recommend The Santa Clause 2; and give it 3 out of 5 stars for its great humor.








Recommended:
Yes