Santa Who?

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: Santa Who?

So what happens when Santa forgets he is Santa? Leslie Nielsen as Santa Claus, that’s what.

So the story begins with a young boy writing a letter to Santa telling him he’s the greatest and that all he wants is to spend christmas with a family. This would be fine, except they have the most bored monotone child reading this letter out loud. A lady who works at the orphanage comes to tell the boy that his father will not be coming and is just going to leave him at the orphanage. She then offers to deliver his letter to Santa.

And she immediately chucks his letter into the fire. It is later explained that she is dutch and that they believe in placing letters to Santa in the fire to get them to him. But of course she NEVER explains that to the boy.

Cut to years later and that boy grows up to be a fluff reporter named Peter. Peter seems like a nice guy, but apparently he’s an asshole according to everyone that knows him. He keeps trying to interview people on the street about Christmas but apparently everyone is in a bad movie. I MEAN MOOD! Oh god, typo, I mean they are in a bad mood.

(Totally happened actually, I was typing, got distracted and when I came back to it, I realized I typed bad movie. Which is hilarious. Just me? Moving on then.)

Peter complains to his boss, saying he should do a story on the Christmas suicide rates or something equally cheery, but his boss ends up having Peter be an undercover Santa. See how the world treats a Mall Santa. Which apparently it has one child demand a list of barbie toys and accessories while another child physically abuses and assaults him. The real mall Santa tries to help him up , but ends up busting through the fake railing and getting horribly injured by the fall and a christmas tree.

Peter is then forced to be the Mall Santa for the day. Which wasn’t the plan? Anywho. Peter then goes over to his girlfriend’s house. His girlfriend’s son, Zack, doesn’t like Peter. Peter sits down to watch a cartoon with Zack and when Peter starts to mention he watched the same show as a kid, Zack immediately says, “Is this going to be another story about you AGAIN?!?”

Seriously, what is the deal? In The Christmas Shoes, Rob Lowe’s character acted short with people so even though he didn’t actively do anything mean or unkind, he still came off like an asshole. Peter acts like a nice guy and tries to do the right thing, but everyone verbally tells him he is an asshole. Show, don’t tell.

We then cut to the North Pole where Santa Claus is having a midlife crisis. He is thinking of retiring because he doesn’t feel like kids care anymore. His head elf Max convinces to go for a short sleigh ride to clear his head. So Santa gets in his sleigh and goes for a ride. Somewhere above The city where Peter lives, Santa hits a patch of bad weather and falls out of his sleigh while all the reindeer go in all sorts of directions.

Santa falls all the way from above the clouds and hits the front of Peter’s parked car as Peter is talking on the phone. Instead of destroying the car and being a splatter on the ground, Santa merely bounces off the hood and loses consciousness. Peter takes Santa upstairs to his girlfriend’s apartment tries to revive him. Zack immediately says Peter hit Santa with his car, and Peter apparently forgets that the car was parked when Santa fell ONTO the car.

Santa wakes up and has amnesia, thus the point of the film. Zack for some reason believes he is the real Santa. I mean, he has no basis for this thinking, but he sticks to his guns. Peter and his girlfriend both decide to profit from this man’s suffering. His girlfriend decides to use him to replace the injured Mall Santa at her mall. He doesn’t get hired until after a second mall Santa gets injured by more defective railing. Peter then does an fluff piece on this amnesiac Santa, hoping to get him home by Christmas.

I’m guessing Daddy Warbucks decided to offer a reward for finding his family because apparently a swarm of people come forward as his family.

While all this is going on, the elves are panicking about Santa not having returned. So they fly into the US undercover to try and find Santa. At customs they boobytrapped their bags with exploding snakes, rattling teeth, and who knows what else so that TSA just give up and send them through. Noteworthy that this is in 2000 where you frustrate the TSA instead of them Frustrating you.

So Zack becomes more and more convinced that this is the REAL Santa despite having NO evidence to back this up. Seriously, if Santa knew things about people he shouldn’t or demonstrated some magical abilities, then yes, I would understand his fanaticism with the idea, but that never happens. He just is shown to be good with kids. That’s literally it.

Santa’s elves apparently search everywhere for Santa with no luck until one of them thinks to look at a TV showing Peter’s report about Santa.

Apparently a couple thinks that Santa looks a lot like their missing Grandpa Nick, whose life story backs up a lot of what Santa said under hypnosis. So the couple picks up Santa, and Santa believes he must be Grandpa Nick. Santa gives away his costume to one of the Bellringers outside the mall. The Bellringer finds a stash of letters inside his coat, one of which is the letter Peter saw burned as a child.

This convinces Peter that he is Santa. Peter calls Santa and convinces him that he is Santa. After relaying this, Peter gets kidnapped by Santa’s elves. They then proceed to bind and torture him with toys. Because? Seriously?!? What has Peter done to deserve ANY of this hate?!?

Everyone goes through more wacky hijinks and child endangerment to recover the sleigh, the reindeer, and Santa’s suit. Then Peter finally decides to commit to his girlfriend and Zack decides Peter isn’t an asshole after all. Santa finally gets around to his deliveries and occasionally has to apologize for running late. The end.

This is such a stupid movie. In The Santa Clause, there was very good reasoning for the kid in the movie to believe his dad was Santa. But there is no reason for this kid to believe. The only justification is that he is right. If he was wrong, then he would have died in the sleigh crash at the end.

Tomorrow: So, since we are starting the second week of this thing, I figured now would be a good time to showcase some horrible sequels. Speaking of Rob Lowe. . .