Le Costume du père Noël

Every year we are exposed to different takes on traditional stories. There are rarely new concepts, just different ways of interpretation.

Kevin Sorbo has a dozen screen appearances this year, and it is a welcome break to see him in something other than Hercules or Syfy.

He is perfect as an unloved CEO - no wife, no girlfriend, no friends of any kind. He pushed cheap toys and is only interested in sales, not people.

Of course, he runs into the real Santa, who decides to teach him a lesson. He is now broke and in a Santa suit. What else is going to do but work as Santa for Christmas? Of course, there is a sad, cute little girl (Brianna Daguanno), and a perky social worker (Jennifer Gibson).

This one will tug at your heartstrings even if you know how it will end.

I'm always dubious about TV movies on these kind of channels, but this one actually drew me in. I only started watching it by accident, stood there with a coffee just staring at the TV, the found myself drawn in to the amazing Christmas message. It's cliché, it's obvious what happens and we all know where the story is heading but how it gets there is very well done and makes for a really watchable and entertaining Christmas film. Well worth a watch.

Available on Hallmark (Demand) and this is NOT a typical Hallmark movie, but I love it - one of my favorite Christmas movies...a little bit of fun in many ways, a tiny bit of romance, and it tugs my heart in so many ways, every time. Enjoy it.

(BTW, I'm not a Kevin Sorbo fan, but this one is still good!).

I was expecting a silly Christmas comedy, ha ha, a Scrooge executive is changed into Santa, learns the error of his ways (while making us laugh at his predicaments) and of course is magically transformed into the reformed Scrooge by the end. I expected nothing really special, but since it's rated 6.7 I expected to enjoy it.

Wrong. I laughed and smiled a few times early on, but basically I found this to be a very touching movie as Kevin Sorbo more and more saw himself as others saw him, and he didn't like it. That his singular focus on the bottom line hurt others, and worst of all, that he didn't even care. I was especially moved by his retelling of his Christmas bike story. I liked that his transformation was gradual, and not a light switch. I would only say that I wish Hallmark had sold 2 or 3 minutes less of commercials, so that the exposition of the new person he had become could have been more gradual.

I liked it a lot, I highly recommend it, and can't wait to share it with my wife.

While this is nothing new about using a sort of a "George Bailey / Scrooge" outline for the story, its nice to see it in a new concept. Rich greedy CEO gets a new outlook on life. Of course it doesn't hurt that Kevin Sorbo is the hunk of a CEO. Although he is a little bland in the beginning he comes out of his uneasiness to embrace his role as Santa. I thought this would be a "boo-hoo save the little poor kid movie" and I wasn't about to watch it. But I was dying to see a new Christmas movie and this one turned out surprisingly good. No matter how mean they try to make Kevin Sorbo he always comes across as super nice though. The supporting cast was okay. Of course there are a few teary scenes but all in all it was a fun movie.