Dear Santa

On the surface, the lowbrow humor and plot seems aimed at children. However, the central premise of selling your soul to Satan introduces themes far more complex than most kids would grasp. And while there are lessons on honesty and doing the right thing, as well as a subplot involving a father learning to trust his child when faced with the incomprehensible, these things might resonate more with adults.

The humor, while aiming for lightheartedness, often comes across as juvenile, which grated on me. The moral lessons appear too nuanced or misplaced for kids to grasp. So I'm not sure if this is really a family movie or just one that has something for everyone in the family.

Kids can just endure the boring efforts at moral quandary while parents have to suffer through jokes that haven't been funny since they were in elementary school.

That said, the performances are great. Jack Black just steals every scene he's in. The subplot involving the parents, particularly the father's arc, is great. But the narrative as a whole, fails to dig deep enough into its more complex elements, like a child's struggles with dyslexia and the implications of accidentally summoning Satan.

The ending, for me, falls flat and feels contrived. It's as if the writers needed to wrap things up. The protagonist doesn't resolving anything so ending feeling unearned.

As a movie to play in the background, feel free to the queue this up, but don't feel you have to sit and watch it. You can get all the jokes and plot points while still cooking a holiday dinner for twelve.

The movie feels disjointed at several points with the ending appearing to be haphazardly thrown together. That didn't make sense to me until I looked at the cast list and realized there might have been a major re-write, re-shoot. Jack Black's partner from Tenacious D, Kyle Gass, plays an English teacher that is in the far background of one scene.. and looks very much like Santa Claus. Now this is just my speculation, but I don't imagine he would have had such a small part in the film initially (historically he has always had much larger roles). After his controversial statements on the attempted assassination of Trump I have a suspicion the film went through major editing and changes.. making the ending feel out of place. It's just a guess at this point, but it's the only thing that seems to explain why professional actors and directors would release something this horrible.

Think Adam sandler and little Nicky when you think about Satan as I know religious groups aren't best pleased but it's just a bit of fun. Great acting the two main kids are brilliant. Jack Black is perfect for this role and with all together it was worth watching. Both sad and funny moments.

The story is a little bit all over the place at times and there is a part that you are trying to work out as to why the family had to move. When you do find out it's pretty upsetting. It does feel like an important of school Adam Sandler film without Adam sandler anywhere near it. Great to see Post Malone cameo which was my favourite part.

I literally never write reviews on this site but felt compelled to after seeing how poorly this movie has been rated. It's far from great and after watching the trailer it was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. Jack Black was pretty solid though I wouldn't say his best performance. The acting all around was good enough.

I'm guessing some angry Christians and the fairly sad plot line had some people unfairly give this an instant 0. It definitely has some laughs, and I thought was decently written. In reality it should be about a 6.5 on this site imo. I'm throwing it a 10 to help out.

This film was much funnier then I thought it would be. A young boy who is a social misfit and is in middle school of all places, still believes in Santa. But he spells his name wrong mistakenly and gets Satan instead of Santa. Everyone thinks the young man is crazy when he says he has met Santa because he truly believes it! This is a fun film with a very sad twist to it. I would recommend watching it.