Well didn't Julie Benz age well? I hope it's not all plastic? I did wish that Paul Hopkins had been as lucky, he was adorable in "Tales Of The City" as the second of three 'Mice' but in this he looked like he had been covered in oil to go with his greasy character. I still have love for David Sutcliffe, who makes an excellent Claus, but he's definitely better with a beard, despite his similarities to Scott Bakula without it.
However, none of that really has anything to do with the film itself.
I liked this story. Generally where a shop is concerned I can appreciate the story from my years as a retail slave, so it was always going to interest me and I love it when there's a Santa's Grotto.
I did feel that they had perhaps one story too many going on and that detracted from the main romance itself. It wouldn't have been so noticeable if they just made some of these films fifteen minutes longer, so that they could develop all of the characters. You are still rooting for them both all the way through it though.
The question we are left with in the end is, could he possibly have been the real Father Christmas? I'd like to believe he was.
Update 13/10/22 -
The first time I watched this film,I really liked it, so I was probably not in the right mood this time, because it just seemed a bit twee and some of the acting was quite poor, or I probably just fancied David Sutcliffe as Nick a bit more back then.
He was still cute and I liked the idea of him potentially being the real "Saint" Nick, but I prefer to think that there really are good people out there that do nice things for the benefit of others.
Julie Benz was okay as Meredith, but personally I think that the idea of Mrs Claus is cute, but not essential, so I don't see the need for her to be at Santa's village. I certainly don't believe that many people turn up to see her at any point in December, it's all about the man with the bulging sack really. That element of the story didn't hurt anything though.
As much as I loved him as Michael Mouse in 'More/Further Tales Of The City' (1998-2001), I didn't like Paul Hopkins as the creepy Daniel in this one. He had none of that charm from before and seemed ugly for his behaviour.
Not all of the cast were actually even that capable of acting. As usual the child actor was awful, but mostly because the character of Tyler was a brat, which was no wonder when his Mother, Jessie wasn't particularly nice either. Along with Olivia, the characters were not delivered with any nuance or apparent ability, which was a shame, because the film clearly had a fairly good budget to afford stronger supporting artists and the production team seemed to know what they were doing, but I believe that the whole thing could have been far more "Charming".
With that said, I'm not sure I could get excited about the lighting of such an awful looking Christmas tree, which is always where these films let themselves down. It looked like they had seen it fallen down on the side of the road and decided it would do and its decoration was poor at best.
The retail part of Christmas can be magic or awful. When you take the magic out of providing the perfect thing for the perfect person and turn it in to how much money you can make from selling tat, that's when it becomes awful. This film tries to show that here. I believe that Father Christmas had the right idea in 'A Miracle On 34th Street' (1947/1994). It's all about the child and the family of course, being happy on Christmas Day and not about profits and margins. When the world realises this in a more general way, we could start to live in a utopia instead of the dystopia we are already stuck in.
It was easy to watch, but seemed to have lost a spark somewhere.
5.5/10.
