Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc. Starring Dudley Moore, David Huddleston, John Lithgow, Christian Fitzpatrick, Carrie Kei Heim, Judy Cornwell, Jeffrey Kramer, John Barrard, Burgess Meredith, Dorothea Phillips. [PG]

From the producing team behind the 1978 Superman epic (Alexander & Ilya Salkind) comes this epic about a different super-powered, flying emblem of truth, justice, and the American way (materialism, that is)—Santa Claus! The basic story structure recalls the earlier film, too, as the first act is devoted to the origin of its gift-giving hero, and much later introduces its chief antagonist, a greedy and fantastically unscrupulous toy company magnate played by Lithgow (representing a different facet of that “American way”: capitalism). The muddled script can’t decide what it wants to focus on during that late, lengthy stretch—a runaway elf (Moore) who yearns to prove his worth by teaming up with said magnate to produce the season’s hot new treat, a Damon Runyon-esque orphan boy (Fitzpatrick) who’s apparently the only homeless person in America, the little rich girl (Heim) who feeds him a steady diet of Coca-Cola, a McDonald’s advertisement almost as blatant as the one from Mac and Me, and so on. Although a little on the slow and repetitive side, the early-going does offer lots of large, eye-filling North Pole sets and a gentle sense of innocence and wonder, yet the movie only becomes “entertaining” (in fits and starts) when it swerves off-road with that evil toy company business, thanks almost entirely to the scenery-devouring delight that is Lithgow. The cluttered contraption overall is a sack of oafish, disorderly, overextravagant, tacky balderdash, but his cartoonish cigar chomping almost makes it worth it. Written by David & Leslie Newman, each of whom also worked on the Superman screenplay.

44/100