First, a disclaimer–I’ve never seen The Santa Clause or Santa Clause 2. You might think that this would be an impediment in my reviewing Santa Clause 3. I went into it with the assumption that, if the filmmakers did their jobs, I would be able to follow the story even without having seen the previous installments. Fortunately, I was right.***

The movie starts with Mrs. Claus teaching a class of elves at the North Pole. This turns out to be a framing sequence–Mrs. Claus tells the elves a story, and that story is the rest of the movie. As it begins, Mrs. Claus is pregnant. Since it’s almost Christmas, her husband is too busy to spend much time with her. At this point it’s unclear why she calls Santa “Scott,” but that gets cleared up later with a clip from the first movie. Scott used to be a regular mortal, until the previous Santa fell off Scott’s roof and died. When Scott put on Santa’s coat, he became the new Santa Claus. And at some point, presumably in the second movie, he got married.***

Soon the Council of Legendary Figures shows up. In addition to Santa, this group includes the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, Mother Nature, Father Time, Cupid, and Jack Frost. The Council is meeting to decide on a punishment for Jack Frost, played by Martin Short, who has overstepped his bounds. Jack offers to stay at the North Pole and help Santa, and Santa agrees. Santa, nice guy that he is, does not seem to notice that Jack Frost is clearly the villain.***

Because Mrs. Claus is going to give birth any moment, Santa brings her parents to the North Pole. He also brings along a husband and wife and their daughter Lucy. It took me awhile to figure out what these people had to do with anything, but I eventually pieced together that the woman was Scott’s ex-wife. Soon everyone’s together at the North Pole, the elves are gearing up for Christmas, Scott’s in-laws are critical of him, and Jack Frost is up to no good. Jack hears that there’s an Escape Clause for Santa, a way he can turn back time so that he never became Santa in the first place. Jack wants the power of Santa for himself, so he tricks Santa into invoking the Escape Clause, at which point Scott must find a way to become Santa again and save Christmas.***

Unfortunately, this central plot point–Jack Frost stealing the power of Santa–happens more than halfway through the movie. So much time is spent on set-up that what is supposed to be the premise of the movie, the Escape Claus, seems rushed. Scott sees what his life would have been like, a la “It’s A Wonderful Life” style scenes, and sees what horrible things Jack Frost has done with the power of Santa. Jack is shown to be a greedy, selfish jerk for turning the North Pole into a big theme park and charging admission, which is ironic, considering this is a Disney movie. Worse, Jack charges people for toys, instead of giving them away. So Jack is bad because he’s charging for toys, but Santa is good because he gives toys away, which means that the spirit of Christmas is still about toys, and this movie is strangely materialistic for a heartwarming holiday story.***

Eventually Scott outsmarts Jack Frost fairly easily. And then, near the very end, the movie takes a turn from “sweet” to “sickeningly sentimental,” which caused me to repeatedly look away from the screen in embarrassment. I know this is a family movie, but I think families are capable of enjoying actual, honest human emotions. There’s no excuse for this sort of groan-inducing sappiness.***

On the plus side, the story is easy to follow, even if you haven’t seen the previous two. The visuals, particularly the giant snowglobe room, are impressive. Martin Short is appropriately smarmy and creepy as Jack Frost, though I wish he could have been a little more villainous. On the negative side, the overall pacing doesn’t work. The plot doesn't quite come together, and the climax is so rushed that it’s unsatisfying. And the sappy part with Lucy at the end is too, too much. There are some fun ideas in here, and the potential for a good movie, but that potential was not realized.

Image & Sound:

The picture and the sound are both crisp and clear.

This DVD comes with a number of special features. The menu is divided up into three sections: Blooper Reel, Music & More, and Backstage Disney. Blooper Reel is just what you’d expect.***

Music & More includes Christmas Carol-oke. This is basically karaoke with Christmas songs, with scenes from the movie running in the background. There are seven traditional Christmas carols, like Jingle Bells and Silent Night. I have no intention of using this, but if you want to gather the family around the TV for Christmas karaoke, this DVD is what you need. This section also includes a music video, “Greatest Time of Year,” with Aly & AJ, whoever they are. It’s a very poppy, Disney sort of song, which makes sense, since this is a Disney movie.***

The Backstage Disney section includes most of what I look for in special features. First is an Alternate Opening. This is an extended version of the opening, in which Mrs. Claus explains the Santa Claus premise, how Scott was a normal man until he put on the magical coat. When I watched the movie, I wished they had included a recap of the previous movies at the beginning, so I was surprised to discover that they had filmed the recap and then cut it.***

“Jack Frost & Mrs. Claus: A Very Different Look” is a short about the redesigns of two characters. When they started filming, both Jack Frost and Mrs. Claus had different looks, and the director quickly realized they weren’t working. This shows some of the original footage, and the director was right. The redesigned Jack Frost looks much more menacing.***

“The New Comedians: On The Set with Tim & Marty” is also short, and shows how much fun Tim Allen and Martin Short had on the set. “Creating Movie Magic” is about the visual effects, and is like every other visual effects documentary included on a DVD. Guys at computers talk about their jobs. Fans of visual effects may find this interesting.***

Director Michael Lembeck gives plenty of behind-the-scenes information in his audio commentary. He talks about casting, editing, filming, and all the technical aspects of filmmaking. He clearly had a lot of enthusiasm for the film. It’s always interesting to remember that even a ridiculous fluffy movie is the result of a lot of hard work.***

Final Words: