The Christmas Chronicles review: Kurt Russell's wisecracking Santa brings bathtub-grade festive spirit
Dir: Clay Kaytis; Starring: Kurt Russell, Darby Camp, Judah Lewis, Kimberley Williams-Paisley, Oliver Hudson, Lamorne Morris, Martin Roach. PG cert, 103 mins.
Just as civilians can recall with clarity the moment they heard of the death of Michael Jackson or the Challenger shuttle explosion, all critics know where they were when Netflix announced they were making a new Adam Sandler comedy every year. The decision makes more sense today than it did in 2014, now it’s clear the streaming service isn’t building a portfolio so much as their own standalone cinematic ecosystem, of which dumb comedies are a non-negotiable part.
So too, in its own way, is the trashy Christmas film – the ones a few rungs down the ladder from seasonal classics like It’s a Wonderful Life. Think Jingle All the Way, or Santa Claus The Movie: the real weaponised corn syrup, all fairy lights, red velvet and yelling, and which under-tens can watch on repeat from mid-October onwards.
Joining their ranks this year is Netflix’s own The Christmas Chronicles, which seems to have been custom-built to plug this exact gap. Late on December 24th, Santa Claus (Kurt Russell) is caught on camera during his rounds by 10-year-old Kate Pierce (Darby Camp) and her off-the-rails elder brother Teddy (Judah Lewis).
One chaotic sleigh-crash later, the siblings must help Santa get back on schedule before Christmas morning, when their mother (Kimberley Williams-Paisley) will return home from a hospital night shift. Geeing them along are a host of furry elves – cod-Swedish-speaking, tacky CG crossbreeds of Trolls and Minions – plus two honourable but sceptical cops (Lamorne Morris, Martin Roach) who take Father Christmas into custody following a high-speed pursuit around central Chicago, in which the rosy-cheeked avatar of seasonal goodwill takes the wheel of a bright red Dodge Challenger. See what happens when your Santa was the bad guy in Death Proof?
The Christmas Chronicles was directed by the former Disney animator Clay Kaytis, but arguably the auteur name here belongs to producer Chris Columbus, writer of Gremlins, director of the first two Home Alone films, and a steering influence on Jingle All the Way.
The film is generally child-friendly, but occasionally shows a flash of Gremlins’ teeth, as in the scene in which the elves fend off a gang of carjackers, pelting them with snooker balls while one manically swings a chainsaw overhead. But for the most part the thermostat remains cranked to snuggly, not least whenever the subject of the Pierce children’s recently departed firefighter father comes up – a very effective parental auto-sob button which the film plants its thumb on with utter mercilessness.
In that respect and others, it feels almost wilfully dated: jokes about fake news, Pilates and the flossing dance craze are among the few signs it was written after 1995, while even the camcorder Kate brings along on her adventure takes tapes.
Not that you would have wanted to see Russell attempt the lead role at any point before now. In 2018 he proves bizarrely ideal for it, and throws himself wholeheartedly behind such flimsy comic gambits as Santa’s loathing of his famous ho-ho-ho catchphrase (“I don’t actually say that”) and dismay at his tubby public image (“billboards add 80 pounds”) with enough commitment to sell them, just about.
He also aces a rousing jailhouse rendition of the Elvis festive staple Santa Claus is Back in Town: it’s the kind of sequence children will enjoy now but only fully decode years later, when they realise exactly what Santa’s impromptu trio of female ‘backing singers’ were doing behind bars, in fishnet stockings, in an inner city police station on Christmas Eve. (Ho ho ho, indeed.)
The whole thing is out-and-out tinsel-dunked tat, but oddly honourable with it – the Christmas spirit might be just a few steps up from bathtub grade, but it still packs a kick.
