Santa with Muscles

This movie is so bad, it's actually considered cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution. I wish I was exaggerating. If you want a Christmas movie, go watch Miracle on 34th Street or something. Just stay far, far, FAR, I can't emphasise this enough, FAR AWAY from this horrifyingly bad film. You've heard the phrase "So bad, it's funny"? Well, this transcends "So bad, it's funny" and ends up just being horrible.

Okay, first things first. Upon renting or viewing any Hulk Hogan movie, one should never set their sights very high. You have the constants of bad acting, senseless and cartoonish violence, and groan-worthy puns. You can also pretty much expect a super-contrived happy ending. However, even taking these aspects for granted, Santa with Muscles still will leave you stunned. It isn't quite the worst movie I've ever seen (Manos, Hootch County, and Ninja Wars beat it there) but it's definitely down there.

The Hulkster stars as Blake Thorne, a big dumb prig with more money than he knows what to do with, so he spends his days playfully tormenting his house-servants. (The 'Stop and smell the roses!' line is a hoot!) Through a ludicrous turn of events, Blake gets amnesia and is convinced by a jerk named Lenny that he is the real Santa Claus. Hijinks, fistfights and eye-rolling sappiness ensue. Watch for two-count 'em-TWO instances of giant candy canes being used as weapons, a horrible song by Hulk and the little whiny girl, the equally stupid 'Blake's rules' and 'Santa's rules', and what is perhaps the most ridiculous McGuffin I've ever seen-but I'll leave that for you to discover.

I can only recommend Santa with Muscles if you happen to have great patience and a high threshold of pain. I wondered about half-way through, "Has this been over 2 hours yet?"...but despite what you may feel it is only a bit over 1 1/2. Not a very merry way to spend your Christmas.

The problem with Hulk Hogan as an actor is that, while he's not Brando, he has his moments where he's okay. That said, all he seems to lend his name to is rubbish children's movies. The only serious thing he seems to have done is Rocky III (you be the judge of how serious that is). This is the ultimate example of that children's movie crap. Hogan is a wealthy man who loses his memory and somehow thinks he is Santa. He is taken in by an orphanage, who are trying to stop some villain doing something. Seriously, that's how forgettable this film is. The acting is poor. Hulk manages to lay some cool smackdown, but then again, so does Jean Claude. The children are all that breed of little goof ball's trying to be cute. Ed Begley Jr is just unnecessary. Many people have a real hatred towards Christmas movies. Of course, they can't all be Bad Santa, the Santa Clause, The Nightmare Before Christmas or the all time great, It's A Wonderful Life. But this is just lazy. Considering Hogan's potential for cool, violent films, this just wastes the most awesome wrestler ever. Just like everything else. I can't give it a one, but it's certainly not worth a passing grade. It's just dosh.

I am sure most of the posters here are not wrestling fans. Therefore, I will clue you in on a couple of things. Hulk Hogan is an ego maniacal jackass that demands creative control over anything he is involved in.

This movie might not have been a classic when it was first written, but I will be fair and say it had average potential(a rating of 5). The movie probably had a different title at first until......Hulkamania arrived.

Hulk Hogan has this remarkable ability to turn something good or average into unwatchable garbage. Original title may have been "When Santa got Rich" or "Santa CEO" or something slightly stupid. Hogan looks at the title and says "no way brother, my fans don't know nothing about no CEO(the first true words to come out of the mouth of the Hulkster in twenty years). So he called it "Santa with Muscles" because no project involving Hogan is allowed to go 5 seconds without referring to the "24 inch pythons" After adding scenes where blow up candy canes are used by Hogan with results comparable to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Hogan finally has gotten his wish. He ruined what might have been an enjoyable movie experience for two year olds and those who are "mentally challenged" or retards as Hogan's faithful redneck fans may call them.

I am not surprised at how bad this film turned out. Wrestling fans with half a brain have hated Hogan for years. He exercises creative control when he is told that he is going to lose and this ends up boring anyone with a below average iq on up to tears. Hogan may have turned wrestling into a million dollar industry with a lot of help from the master marketing machine named Vince Mcmahon. Many good people sacrificed their wrestling careers by falling prey to Hogan's trademark "leg drop of doom" and now some poor director is probably living under a bridge in Los Angeles damning the day he got involved with Hulk Hogan. Hogan may have helped turn wrestling into mainstream entertainment, but he also singlehandedly destroyed the same industry(his tired act help put WCW into the ground) he helped build by never learning more than three moves. Punch, back scratch, high boot and leg drop. Oops that is four moves. Some things never change. In the ring the bad guy always loses to Hulk via leg drop. In the movies, Hogan expands his creative horizons by having the bad guy lose via Plastic candy Kane.

Is to use any and all copies of this film as Yule Logs, though it would likely leave a lingering stench for weeks to come. Everyone has summed up this film pretty accurately; it makes the Christmas turkey that Scrooge bought for Bob Crachit look like a spring chicken. The film stars that great thespian Hulk Hogan. He has made some pretty awful films, but even he should have used an alias for this one. Not to be missed is his costume, which is pure Village People Santa (it's a shame they didn't record a song about the holiday joy of sitting on Santa with Muscle's lap). Granted, I am not a geologist, but any crystals that have the ability to explode if barely jostled can be used for sword fights later on in the film, well, your script editors have some continuity issues. Remember the old saying, that if you put 1000 monkeys into a room with 1000 typewriters, that one of them will eventually write Shakespeare? They might not get to Shakespeare, but this film is evidence that they will churn out a steaming pile of reindeer crap. If you truly want to spread Christmas cheer, get yourself a caroling book and a few friends and hit the streets. The only thing this film is good for is as a substitute for coal in a Christmas stocking.