Review of The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006) by Joan R — 18 Feb 2008

This was definitely the weakest film of the three. It had some good ideas, but they weren't handled very well. For instance, the webcomic "Sluggy Freelance" has also included a council of people who represent holidays and get their jobs by rite of caste (i.e. by killing their predecessor).

They seemed to gloss over the fact that Jack Frost deliberately killed the previous Santa, unlike Scott Calvin who did it by accident in the original timeline. For that matter, if he was willing to do that, why not simply kill Scott in the present and grab his coat rather than messing around with snowglobes? This would have the fringe benefit that Scott would no longer be around wanting revenge. Similarly, it took about an hour to set up the premise that they showed in the trailer, and then that was dealt with in about 10 minutes. If I'd been writing this film, I would have put that in at the start, then allowed Jack Frost to repent later on and voluntarily use the Escape Clause to set things right.

Cast wise, I was very impressed by Liliana Mumy, and I think she has a good career ahead of her. I didn't realise that Michael Dorn was in this until the end credits; I didn't recognise Worf without the Klingon make-up! Still, he did a decent job in a small role. However, it was a shame that they didn't get Bernard the elf back for this film.