The Year Without a Santa Claus

This "remake" of the beloved Year without a Santa Clause was the most awful movie I have seen in years. First of all - it was not a kids special. There were scantily clad women and many parts I would find inappropriate for young kids. No wonder it was on at 9 pm. Not that I am opposed to adult oriented movies, I am a horror fan and rarely watch anything that is not rated R, but, as far as Christmas specials go... they are usually geared towards little children. The acting was horrible. Eddie Griffin and the guy from Mallrats as the elves was ridiculous. I could not even get through the whole thing it was so bad. If I could have given it a 0 I would have. The original was great - that I highly recommend.

A truly depressing piece of dreck, this live action version of the Christmas classic fails on so many levels it's almost funny. (And those are the only laughs you'll get out of this.) It's a shame the movie studios all closed down their TV movie units in the 80s because TV movies need all the help they can get.

All those modern, "hip" touches are rife with jokes that soar over the kid's heads, but sadly not the adults. The humor is, befitting the times, crude and boorish and the story is lame. Bad acting, contrived sentimental situations and flat photography all contribute to a bad time had by all. The heads at NBC must have been high on cough syrup to even think this looked like it would be any good.

Shove this one in the vault and never let it see the light of day again.

When a "Christmas movie" contains the line "Santa, you suck" and M-rated video game carnage in the first half-hour, you know it's time to check out.

Cheap, tacky sets and costumes, atrocious "in-jokes" about other Xmas specials, and no observable comedy anywhere in sight. When you add in the really inappropriate language and visuals, as well as a complete lack of fun, well even my 4-year-old lost interest very quickly.

Besides, Chris Kattan's disgusting pinkeye infection was making it hard to pay attention to anything else but how inflamed his eye was! Seriously, in HD, you could almost feel the burn yourself!

You really have to wonder what NBC and the creators of this film were thinking adapting the beloved animated special into this live-action film.

Were they hoping to expand the story (adapted from Phyllis McGinley's novel)? Then why is it that the original version accomplished more storytelling in a one-hour special than this movie does in two? This adaptation with a strange credit of teleplay and "television story" by Larry Wilson and Tom Martin goes off on so many tangents and in so many directions it only makes passing reference to the plot of the original novel and Rankin-Bass special it makes one wonder why they bothered to pay royalties to the original creators at all.

Perhaps it was so they could include the famous "I'm Mr. Heat/ Snow Miser" song, but this rare moment of energy in this movie is rather jarring considering that this is not otherwise a musical and the rest of the score is missing.

The cast is excellent across-the-board, though the lovely Delta Burke is way too young for the thankless role of Mrs. Claus, the prime mover of the plot in the original but reduced to looking concerned and expounding exposition here. You know you are in trouble when a film includes John Goodman, Eddie Griffin, Harvey Firestein and Michael McKean (and a scene-stealing Carol Kane) and is still dull.

An almost-complete waste of time and a scouring of a terrific story. Now go and watch the Rankin/ Bass original!

Another adaptation of the book, but is mostly a painful extension of the Rankin and Bass cartoon. This becomes no more apparent than when they decide to just throw in the Heat/Snow Miser songs. In the same sad way that Ron Howard's Grinch used the song from the 60's version. It's a highlight, but it just reminds us how unimaginative and tacky the remake is. We have a needless antagonist that wants to replace Santa with Extreme Santa, and Jangle is obsessed with urban culture and television. Towards the end it picks up, when I forgot the main plot of the film, and it focused on the son and his politician father. Goodman is fine as a cranky Santa, but he's just playing himself. McKean and Fierstein have some fun as the Miser brothers, even though I don't think Fierstein's voice suits the singing sections. The cartoon has more heart, more soul, and doesn't go for forced "humour"