Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause Review

Poor performances of a bad, almost nasty script combine with a manic performance by Tim Allen and an atrocious antagonist to make the "Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause" 95 minutes of your life you will want a refund from someone for.  While on rare occasions great acting can save a bad script, nothing can save this mess.  Allen (reprising his Santa Claus/Scott Calvin alter-egos) is a mass of tics and cliches, combining the worst aspects of his Tim "Toolman" Taylor character (loud, boorish egotism) with the charm of a pocket calculator to create the appearance of a guy who can't wait to cash his check for the film.  One would presume (hope?) that the writers intended Jack Frost (Martin Short) to be some kind of merry prankster, but as Short portrays him he comes across as a selfish, nasty pyromaniac who cares for no one but himself.  Elizabeth Mitchell (Mrs. Claus) tries hard, but has little to work with due to Alan Arkin's one-note obnoxious performance as her father and Ann Margaret looking comatose as her mother.  Finally, Spencer Breslin's promotion to Head Elf only makes Bernard's (the ex-Head Elf, played by David Krumholtz in SC 1 and 2) even more glaring.  The rest of the cast barely registers, including the waste of Wendy Crewson, Judge Reinhold and Eric Lloyd as Allen's family from the first two movies. 

The "plot" revolve around three problems Santa Claus must deal with.  First, Mrs. Claus is pregnant and her due date is Christmas Eve.  Next, his in-laws are coming for a visit, and in a painfully akward segment he must disguise the North Pole as a Canadian town to "protect the secret of Santa Claus."  Finally, a minor member of the Council of Legendary Creatures, Jack Frost, is jealous of Santa's fame, and plots to sabotage the preparations for Christmas in order to convince Calvin to exercise the "Escape Clause" and become human again, thus allowing Frost to become the Big Guy.  Hilarity is supposed to ensue, but sadly it does not.  It's as if the writers decided to throw all their story lines at the wall and see what stuck.  Too bad none of it did.

On watching this on DVD for the first time, we lost both my children to other activities by the 30 minute mark.  My wife and I persevered, but agreed that the best part of the whole thing was the blooper segment that took place over the beginning segment of the end credits.  When the mistakes are the best part of a movie, all I can be thankful for is that the rental only cost $1, instead of movie theater prices.