Annie Claus Is Coming to Town

Every now and then, the Hallmark Channel comes up with a different plot for a Christmas movie. And, most of those are quite good. "Annie Claus Is Coming to Town" is such a film.

Although it follows a familiar theme about the eventual replacement for the current Santa Claus, the plot is unique enough to make this a fine comedy romance for Christmas viewing. Most of the cast are good, and Maria Thayer is superb as Annie Claus. When she rents her room at the Candy Cane Motel, she tells Lucy her last name is spelled with a K.

Thayer's Annie is a constantly joyful person - it wouldn't be right to say she is "chronically" joyful. It's her nature, coming from where she does. And, her joyfulness is infectious. That's something that would likely be overdone, or come across as corny or sappy by many another actor. But Thayer makes it seem real, pleasing and refreshing.

This is a more modern film that most family members should enjoy over the Christmas holidays. The film has some funny and clever lines, and gets in a couple gentle digs about living in the Los Angeles area. Here are my favorites.

Martha Claus, "All right, Annie. Are you ready to see where sabbatical will be taking you?" Annie, "Oh, I'm so excited, mother. It could be anywhere. Paris. Prague. Pittsburgh."

Lucy, "Well, we're pretty comfortable around here living in fear of each other. We tend to not make eye contact if we can help it." Annie, "When I pass someone without a smile, I like to offer mine."

Lucy, to her daughter, "Don't you ever run after a man, hear me?" Mia, "Okay."

Daddy (Santa) lets his daughter leave The North Pole to go live on her. Welcome to Los Angeles where it's not so easy to have a wonderful yuletide feeling. Annie gets a job, transforms a business and falls in love, all of which adds up to a mountain of sugar-coated Christmasy schmaltz in its purest form. What's here is average at best but on the plus side it does have Christmas at its very core which makes it one of the better Christmastime made-for-TV movies. Plus the lead actress (Maria Thayer) is so cute to watch for 85 minutes!

5.7 / 10 stars

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

I sat down to watch "Annie Claus is Coming to Town" during the Christmas season, as part of a great many number of Christmas movies to watch. I must admit, though, that "Annie Claus is Coming to Town" was not among the better of all the Christmas movies that I watched.

Sure, the movie had a decent enough storyline, however, it just wasn't outstanding or particularly memorable. The story about Santa's daughter taking a trip away from the North Pole was interesting enough. But there was just too much of a contrast between where the movie wanted to go and where it ended up going. And I wasn't particularly impressed with the outcome of the movie at the hands of director Kevin Connor.

Maria Thayer is a good enough actress for a movie such as this, and she certainly does have that unique charm and quality that was required to pull off something like a movie such as this. However, she was just struggling with a less than adequate script.

The movie also suffered from being too sappy and predictable. Sure, this was a Christmas movie shown on the Hallmark Channel, but did it have to follow every single step of how to make a family-friendly Christmas movie? It just ended up as being very generic and mundane.

There are far better Christmas movies available, movies that are more Warming to the heart and brings a smile to the lips. "Annie Claus is Coming to Town" just didn't had enough to put underneath the Christmas tree, pardon the pun.

From the first moment of this movie, it was clear that there is no such thing as realism. So accept it for what it is and enjoy.

Having said that, there are still some flaws in this film, but Maria Thayer as Annie is such a delight that it makes up for it. Annie is the Princess of Christmas being Santa's daughter and Thayer does a good job spreading Christmas to everyone. Sadly she is naïve to the world and easily falls prey to Dean, the shark trying to lead her astray. Still her joy infects not just the people around her, but the audience as well. Thayer and Sam Page are good together, but for most of the movie that is muted because she thinks her love is Dean, so their relationship can't really take off. Almost all of the characters other than Thayer and Page are either exaggerated or flat. Santa is almost robotic.

The plot is mostly predictable and some of the effects are weak.

If you sit back this movie can be an enjoyable Christmas sleigh ride.

I would never put on a film like this for lots of reasons, It looks like a kids movie and a bit cheesy (which it is). The movie just came on TV and whilst my instinct was to change the channel.. I got sucked in by Annie Clause and her quest to spread xmas cheer and find true love. Annie is the daughter of santa who has never been away from the North Pole until now, and she ends up working in a toy store and winning the affections of two men. Of course one of the men is a slimy bad guy and Annie is to Naive to see what a liar he is, the whole time her real true love is mr perfect in the background. The film has all the ingredient needed. The main character Annie is enjoyable to watch, the story is good and quick paced. There's a horrid bad guy, and it's ultimately a Christmas love story. It sounds weird but the colours and set are lovely and nice on the eye. This film made me feel like "home alone". Fun, enjoyable, easy to watch and all round light hearted. I would recommend this film if you want something nice n easy to watch on a Sunday afternoon.