I recently just re-watched this movie after (believe it or not) 20 years of the VHS collecting dust in my garage. I grew up with this movie as a child and used to love watching it with my cousins every year at my grandparents house, but on the other hand there were a few scenes that used to confuse me as a kid and in very few scenes scare the living hell out of me. This movie now to me as an adult almost answers all the questions I used to have as a kid and the answers are simple, its just the writers, producers, and Director were just plain Lazy!!! Seriously this movie is a film that has a good plot that makes sense the first five minutes of the movie even with some of the corny dialogue within in that time, but after that the story goes completely flat and just leaves you staring at your TV bored and confused. So the movie starts off with a young boy who is considered an outcast at his school and get harassed by a creepy looking janitor who gives him murderous threats about eating him for dinner which is pretty stupid.
However in the movie we learn that the little boy Simon (fun fact: which is my name by the way)is orphaned and lives with his grandmother and learn that his parents are known to be prisoners in Africa. When he is asked what he wants for Christmas he makes it clear that he wants Santa to have his parents return home. See where I am going with this? This is a good introduction then as I said before the movie then starts adding multiple subplots that are never resolved or explained. Some good examples are (spoliers) the boy and his little girlfriend go on a school field trip to an airport and see a flight that leads to the north pole and decide to go to the plane to ask Santa for his parents. They somehow manage to get on the flight and leave to the north pole, but the stupid part is no one takes notice of their disappearance almost the whole entire movie not even there teacher. Next is the teacher and janitor play two different characters. The teacher plays a fairy an assistant for Santa and the janitor an evil ogre that kidnaps the children and the children never even once point out that there are the same people in the movie. There are also scenes in the movie that are just so pointless and come off as far fetched and just pointless to the plot that can be flat out stupid like the kids walking through the forest looking for Santa and somehow find him on his slay which is so far fetched cause come on anyone can get lost in those woods. The Africa scenes are completely pointless scenes where the dang fairy starts talking to a bunch of damn monkeys, where Santa does a stupid thing and gets into a river full of crocodiles because he said its too hot, the escape scene where Santa finds Simon's parents which don't explain how they even know its the parents, but yea and the African soldiers just let them escape with out notice. The final scene that used to freaking traumatize me as a kid and even to this day as an adult it the scene where the ogre grabs a puppy dog that the children have with them through out the movie and he puts it between the pieces of bread and is looks like he is about to eat it but children cry and beg him not to and he gives the puppy a sad look and slowly lays it down then the scene cuts out and when they return to the ogres house we don't see the puppy again so as a kid I used to always ask did he end up eating the poor innocent puppy didn't look like it in the last scene. The movie does have a good ending and a good musical score but the writing is just so poorly written I watch the movie and almost feel like I could have written the movie better hell the to me kid would of just had a dream and would have ripped off the wizard of oz waking up scene just to make the movie make sense. I mean come on you had two adorable children who are our main characters, a sexy teacher/fairy, a good plot, and a good score. This movie could have been an iconic Christmas movie like elf or its a wonderful life but just didn't live up to its potential and i don't want to hear well its a French film or a film made for children it doesn't matter it still applies to any other movie just look at Disney movies.
However in the movie we learn that the little boy Simon (fun fact: which is my name by the way)is orphaned and lives with his grandmother and learn that his parents are known to be prisoners in Africa. When he is asked what he wants for Christmas he makes it clear that he wants Santa to have his parents return home. See where I am going with this? This is a good introduction then as I said before the movie then starts adding multiple subplots that are never resolved or explained. Some good examples are (spoliers) the boy and his little girlfriend go on a school field trip to an airport and see a flight that leads to the north pole and decide to go to the plane to ask Santa for his parents. They somehow manage to get on the flight and leave to the north pole, but the stupid part is no one takes notice of their disappearance almost the whole entire movie not even there teacher. Next is the teacher and janitor play two different characters. The teacher plays a fairy an assistant for Santa and the janitor an evil ogre that kidnaps the children and the children never even once point out that there are the same people in the movie. There are also scenes in the movie that are just so pointless and come off as far fetched and just pointless to the plot that can be flat out stupid like the kids walking through the forest looking for Santa and somehow find him on his slay which is so far fetched cause come on anyone can get lost in those woods. The Africa scenes are completely pointless scenes where the dang fairy starts talking to a bunch of damn monkeys, where Santa does a stupid thing and gets into a river full of crocodiles because he said its too hot, the escape scene where Santa finds Simon's parents which don't explain how they even know its the parents, but yea and the African soldiers just let them escape with out notice. The final scene that used to freaking traumatize me as a kid and even to this day as an adult it the scene where the ogre grabs a puppy dog that the children have with them through out the movie and he puts it between the pieces of bread and is looks like he is about to eat it but children cry and beg him not to and he gives the puppy a sad look and slowly lays it down then the scene cuts out and when they return to the ogres house we don't see the puppy again so as a kid I used to always ask did he end up eating the poor innocent puppy didn't look like it in the last scene. The movie does have a good ending and a good musical score but the writing is just so poorly written I watch the movie and almost feel like I could have written the movie better hell the to me kid would of just had a dream and would have ripped off the wizard of oz waking up scene just to make the movie make sense. I mean come on you had two adorable children who are our main characters, a sexy teacher/fairy, a good plot, and a good score. This movie could have been an iconic Christmas movie like elf or its a wonderful life but just didn't live up to its potential and i don't want to hear well its a French film or a film made for children it doesn't matter it still applies to any other movie just look at Disney movies.