TThis is the clever little “what if” at the heart of this season's abundance of Christmas comedy Dear Santa: What if a child writes a letter to Santa but accidentally writes Satan's name instead? ? It's a spelling mistake made by an awkward 11-year-old boy with dyslexia that leads to a celebratory visit from the wrong man in red, and the inevitable confusion.
But as you'd expect from any other recent movie based on a tidy, easily suggested logline, the questions are far more interesting than the answers. That's because Bobby Farrelly's former co-creator of studio comedy fails to find the punch line to the joke, a great idea for a subpar movie.
It is clearly an inferiority complex that is felt even behind the scenes. Despite boasting a starring role starring the Farrelly brothers and Jack Black, the film received minimal to no promotion, with a lack of screenings available to the press ahead of its pre-Thanksgiving release. , was quietly released on Paramount+. Even if the film had won awards, it would have been unlikely to get a theatrical release anyway (despite the rise in streaming for this subgenre, this month's Red One is 2018 It was the first Christmas movie released theatrically by a major studio since 2013), but the film still speaks for itself. We knew more about the romance between Lacey Chabert's snowman with abs than we did about the reunion between the Shallow Hal star and director.
Part of the problem here is the confusion of intonation. The setting insists on a level of darkness that Farrelly and co-screenwriter Ricky Britt can't wisely control. We're caught between a tender children's movie full of life lessons about family and acceptance and a dark adult comedy about a demon trying to steal the souls of teenagers. Naturally, and not very interestingly, the former wins.
Black's roles in the Jumanji series, the Super Mario Bros. movies, the never-ending Kung Fu Panda sequel, and next year's Minecraft movie have made him a popular comedic target for younger audiences. They are particular and have more financial success. As Satan, you might expect something a little more edgy given the situation. Satanbut it's more of the same thing, with his brand of cartoonish mania turning the Prince of Darkness into a lovable bastard. After an unexpected letter, he becomes obsessed with Liam (newcomer Robert Timothy Smith) and ends up stealing his soul after granting him three wishes. The script takes them from trying to impress a girl at school to an extravagant long sequence at a Post Malone concert, complete with a Shrugged cameo.
The best way to really utilize the character of Satan is that even though he's in almost every scene, there's no clear idea, and so his diabolical tricks leave us with a sigh and more posts. -Either play Malone or sigh and give someone a run for their money. Despite the wide canvas without rules, there is nothing more original than this.
What's a little more interesting is what happens to Liam's parents. They become increasingly agitated by their son's new obsession with demons, which the parents see as a dangerous delusion that prompts them to seek help from a therapist played by Keegan-Michael Key. are. But their fractured relationship soon pushes the film into familiar festival territory, as Liam ultimately seeks Satan's help in avoiding divorce. It leads to an awkward lurch into straight-faced seriousness with sadness for a lost brother, but in a movie so focused on jokes about diarrhea, it's hard for us to invest this much emotion into it.
For something more like a paycheck than a passion project, Black's energy is admirably high, if a bit exhausting. His panto antics will probably appeal more to younger audiences (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, kids?), even if his pop culture references won't. A final twist and thankless cameo make the film's soul-sucking setting easy to follow, but a poorly explained scene at the end makes the candy-cane saccharine all too intense. Since I am using it, I am feeling a little frustrated. Dear Santa is like watching a bad Santa slowly turn into an elf, an unsatisfying attempt at being naughty and nice that ultimately accomplishes nothing.
