8 years after taking on the mantle of Santa Claus, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) continues his role keeping alive the spirit of Christmas. However when Scott's son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd), ends up on the naughty list Scott finds he may be having difficulty balancing his personal and professional life. Additionally due to an oversight regarding the Santa Clause on the elves part, Scott begins to undergo "de-Santafication" as per the Mrs. Clause stipulating he must take a wife in 28 days or else cease being Santa. Now Scott must bring himself back into the dating scene while also trying to understand what's troubling his son. Meanwhile back at the North Pole, a Toy replica of Santa (Tim Allen) is put in place by Scott, Bernard the Head Elf (David Krumholtz), and Curtis (Spencer Breslin) to keep the elves spirits up, but when Toy Santa decides the entire world is Naughty, he enacts a plan to turn the North Pole into a dictatorship and give the whole world coal.
1994's The Santa Clause became a sleeper hit in its original release launching Tim Allen's film career and becoming a staple of Holiday broadcast on TV in years subsequent to its release. In 2000, Disney commissioned work on a sequel with Don Rhymer of Under Wraps and Big Momma's House writing the initial draft. The film went through multiple revisions with the final film credited to five different screenwriters. The Santa Clause 2 does bring some interesting expansions of the original premise to the screen, but it also suffers from a lot of excess bloat and a lack of focus.
Like in the previous film, Tim Allen brings a lot of charm to the role of Scott Calvin/Santa Claus and gives the character that same charm that was so appealing in the first film. The movie also doesn't reset itself back to zero as many comedy sequels are often guilty of doing and does feel like a continuation and expansion off the first film. The romance scenes between Scott Calvin and love interest Principal Carol Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell) are quite sweet and there's some scenes that capture a real sense of magic or wonder such as a "secret santa" bit at a faculty office party wherein Scott arranges for several attendees to receive mint condition toys from their youth. There's also some amusing bits with Santa having meetings with other Legendary Figures such as Mother Nature, Father Time, the Easter Bunny, Cupid, and the Tooth Fairy who are all played by notable comedians/character actors in a fun scene. The scenes in the North Pole where Santa's toy doppelganger played by Tim Allen in a dual role slowly turns into a power hungry dictator are so surreal that it becomes pretty humorous due in no small part to the "plasticky" make-up of Toy Santa and the purposefully awkward delivery that it does become quite funny.
The biggest drawback to The Santa Clause 2 is in the fact that five people are credited with writing the movie (and possibly even more uncredited) and it definitely feels like it. The movie has way too many moving parts with the "Mrs. Clause" ticking clock, Charlie being on the naughty list, establishing new characters while bringing back old ones with nothing for them to really do (Judge Reinhold and Wendy Crewson are particularly wasted in borderline cameo appearances), and the movie makes a massive mistake by only giving Scott a month before finding a woman to marry. Many of the story problems that come with this premise are from the fact they only give Scott a month to find a woman to meet which coupled with the already busy and cluttered narrative undercuts the impact of the romance scenes especially with how much pressure there is for Carol to say "yes" otherwise Christmas is gone forever. There are some solid individual scenes or ideas on display in the movie, but they feel like they're all crowding each other out and not given enough time for development. While I wasn't the biggest fan of the first The Santa Clause, it had more structure and direction with a clear cut narrative of Scott now being Santa and needing to get his affairs in order (the melodramatic family drama leading to an unbelievable climax notwithstanding). Santa Clause 2 on the other takes the direction of "throw everything at the wall and something will stick".
The Santa Clause 2 is more or less on the same level as its predecessor, but also has most of the problems that come from overstuffed sequels that lose the plot when trying to one up their predecessors. Tim Allen remains an engaging presence as Santa/ Scott and the romance between him and Carol is quite sweet, but the movie is overly busy with an over compressed ticking clock that undermines the structure and impact of the movie.
1994's The Santa Clause became a sleeper hit in its original release launching Tim Allen's film career and becoming a staple of Holiday broadcast on TV in years subsequent to its release. In 2000, Disney commissioned work on a sequel with Don Rhymer of Under Wraps and Big Momma's House writing the initial draft. The film went through multiple revisions with the final film credited to five different screenwriters. The Santa Clause 2 does bring some interesting expansions of the original premise to the screen, but it also suffers from a lot of excess bloat and a lack of focus.
Like in the previous film, Tim Allen brings a lot of charm to the role of Scott Calvin/Santa Claus and gives the character that same charm that was so appealing in the first film. The movie also doesn't reset itself back to zero as many comedy sequels are often guilty of doing and does feel like a continuation and expansion off the first film. The romance scenes between Scott Calvin and love interest Principal Carol Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell) are quite sweet and there's some scenes that capture a real sense of magic or wonder such as a "secret santa" bit at a faculty office party wherein Scott arranges for several attendees to receive mint condition toys from their youth. There's also some amusing bits with Santa having meetings with other Legendary Figures such as Mother Nature, Father Time, the Easter Bunny, Cupid, and the Tooth Fairy who are all played by notable comedians/character actors in a fun scene. The scenes in the North Pole where Santa's toy doppelganger played by Tim Allen in a dual role slowly turns into a power hungry dictator are so surreal that it becomes pretty humorous due in no small part to the "plasticky" make-up of Toy Santa and the purposefully awkward delivery that it does become quite funny.
The biggest drawback to The Santa Clause 2 is in the fact that five people are credited with writing the movie (and possibly even more uncredited) and it definitely feels like it. The movie has way too many moving parts with the "Mrs. Clause" ticking clock, Charlie being on the naughty list, establishing new characters while bringing back old ones with nothing for them to really do (Judge Reinhold and Wendy Crewson are particularly wasted in borderline cameo appearances), and the movie makes a massive mistake by only giving Scott a month before finding a woman to marry. Many of the story problems that come with this premise are from the fact they only give Scott a month to find a woman to meet which coupled with the already busy and cluttered narrative undercuts the impact of the romance scenes especially with how much pressure there is for Carol to say "yes" otherwise Christmas is gone forever. There are some solid individual scenes or ideas on display in the movie, but they feel like they're all crowding each other out and not given enough time for development. While I wasn't the biggest fan of the first The Santa Clause, it had more structure and direction with a clear cut narrative of Scott now being Santa and needing to get his affairs in order (the melodramatic family drama leading to an unbelievable climax notwithstanding). Santa Clause 2 on the other takes the direction of "throw everything at the wall and something will stick".
The Santa Clause 2 is more or less on the same level as its predecessor, but also has most of the problems that come from overstuffed sequels that lose the plot when trying to one up their predecessors. Tim Allen remains an engaging presence as Santa/ Scott and the romance between him and Carol is quite sweet, but the movie is overly busy with an over compressed ticking clock that undermines the structure and impact of the movie.