Looking back on the 1990s, when I was just a kid, I fondly remember watching The Santa Clause with Tim Allen. By 2002, when the sequel came out, I was 14 and had, of course, become an apostate to the whole belief in the jolly old Saint Nick. Over the years, I had heard a lot of bad things about The Santa Clause 2, but with Disney+ at home, I decided to give it a try. There will be spoilers here, so if you’ve never seen it, consider this your warning.
The Santa Clause 2 obviously spends more time showing Scott Calvin as Kris Kringle at the North Pole doing his full-time work. Quite a few years have passed, and he seems pretty well accustomed to being Father Christmas.
But one of his elves missed a key detail in the fine print on the card. Written in microletters invisible to the human eye, it states that Santa must have a Mrs. Claus by a certain time. After wasting valuable years, he now has until Christmas Eve to do so.
And, surprise surprise, he ends up falling in love with his son’s principal. His son has become a delinquent, acting out in a desperate attempt to get his dad’s attention. I actually remember the actress from Once Upon a Time, where she played Elsa’s antagonistic aunt. I accidentally spoiled for myself the fact that she would become Mrs. Claus.
I did enjoy seeing Scott Calvin de-Santa himself. I found it pretty hard to believe he could find a wife while looking like the spitting image of the classic Santa Claus. Especially the way he appears on the movie poster.
I really don’t agree with Tim Allen’s politics today, but I have to admit I miss him in his prime. He was always great in these roles; he was one of the undisputed kings of 1990s entertainment.
I did find it weird that the villain of the movie is a toy replica of Scott Calvin as Santa. It gains a lot of autonomy, but it looks so strange. Then it starts acting like a certain orange-hued president we have today.
Obviously, The Santa Clause 2 is not even close to holding a candle to the original. But because I went in with low expectations, I actually quite enjoyed it. It’s predictable, silly, and full of plot holes, but it is a much more worthy sequel than I originally anticipated. It’s definitely not a Christmas classic, but I can see why there was a third movie and a much more recent television series.