L'Année sans père Noël

I was actually fortunate enough to watch part of the filming of this movie in Natchitoches, LA and never would have believed how bad it was when it hit the screen. I was sorely disappointed for many reasons including the fact that they filmed this during the hottest time of the year expecting the extra's to wear winter coats, sweaters & other items so hot that many were suffering from heat exhaustion...even Santa. The extra's were not even paid extra's. They wanted 1,000 and I think were lucky to get 100 if that but I know not near as many showed up in the 90-100 degree weather sporting their winter attire.

I had TIVO'd the movie for my grand children to watch around the holidays and ended up deleting it before I even watched it all the way through.

The grand kids weren't disappointed at Christmas because I had recorded many of the "good" Christmas specials for them and didn't make them suffer through this one.

Not unwatchable, but definitely low budget. The movie had potential, but most of the performances were flat. The only person who remotely kept my interest was Eddie Griffin, playing jingle. It put my kids to sleep in the first hour. I usually like John Goodman, but his acting was almost forced. AS was most of the person's acting in this show. It reminded me of someone simply reading a teleprompter. Chris Kattan was OK, but even he seemed to be holding back from being funny. Harvey Fierstein did play a good Heatmiser and he definitely had the better looking groupees vs those with his brother, Coldmiser! I finished watching it, but won't go out of my way to see it again next year. Believe me, its not a modern classic.

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"

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!

Acting=bland, storyline=contrived, pacing=dirge-like, charm=none. A live action "Year Without a Santa Claus" seems like a great idea, unless the people involved turn it into a remake of the Salkind's "Santa Claus: The Movie" instead. And that's what happened.

Not everything about this movie is worthless. The first Heat Miser/Snow Miser scene was well done, but then again it's the only thing left over from the original. At least the powers that be recognized the appeal of that number.

Everyone else was just sleepwalking through their parts, which is a shame. I was excited to see John Goodman as Santa, but he wasn't weary enough in the scenes where Santa is weary, and certainly wasn't jolly enough when Saint Nick needed to be his old self. And Delta Burke? Did she really have a part in this? Mrs. Claus was an important part of the original...here she just seemed like an observer.

I was looking forward to this...I'm no purist. I'm open for all kinds of remakes. But this just didn't cut it.

Watch the original instead. It's a classic, despite its age.