Time to check out the last few of our
Santa Who? (2000)
The late Leslie Nielsen seems to have had some truly bad judgement when accepting movie roles. We all know he was perfect in
Police Squad and its not-quite-as-funny spin off movies
The Naked Gun (three movies which got progressively more annoying and ran out of ideas more with each sequel) and of course
Airplane! And its sequel, in which he more or less made his name as a film star. But then you have
Repossessed, 2001: A Space Travesty, Spy Hard, Men With Brooms, two of the
Scary Movies,
Stan Helsing, Mr (shudder)
Magoo and on and on until ten years after this movie he passed away. I expect he will always be remembered as the strait-laced, unintentionally funny Lieutenant Frank Drebin, which is just as well, as he would not want to have left this as his legacy!
Trotting out the tired old story of someone losing their memory (a feat I bet everyone who watched this wishes they could emulate) we have Santa bopping his head and forgetting who he is. Now, since he fell out of his sleigh over LA (yes I know it rhymes) surely it can be assumed he was wearing his Santa suit and so could easily be identified you know what: let’s just not trouble the agents of logic with this one, as the writer clearly did not. Nielsen clearly did not learn his lesson from this movie, as the next year he was off starring in
Kevin of the North, Men With Brooms and
Scary Movie 3, but I guess that’s his funeral. Oh. Sorry. Well.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings
Tomatometer: n/a
Audience Score: 27%
IMDB rating
5.2/10
No critics would go on record, so we have only audience reaction, like this one:
Just an awful movie. Don't waste your time watching it.
And this
Many people claim this film can destroy Christmas. Although nothing is that bad, I can see where they are coming from. You'd expect a little bit of comedy from a film with Leslie Nielson about Santa losing his memory. Either I was completely oblivious to the humour, or the film was playing it straight. There's no real entertainment to be had, no fun in sight. It's cheap, and uneventful.