Grade: D

Verdict: There's no joy in returning to a well that was dry to begin with.

Details: Starring Tim Allen and Elizabeth Mitchell. Rated G. 105 minutes.

See it: Local theaters and showtimes for The Santa Clause 2

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: The fake snow is back--along with the fake beard, the fake belly and the fake sentiment.

Though it's been nearly eight years, there must be parents who still cringe when they remember the torturous experience that was "The Santa Clause." But those who reluctantly contributed to its $144 million box-office haul likely won't have to return for the sequel; their kids are much older now and are probably conspiring to sneak into "Jackass: The Movie."

It may seem gauche to refer to so vulgar an enterprise in a review of a "family" film, but "The Santa Clause 2" is just as crude as anything the "Jackass" crew has ever done--and not nearly as inventive or spirited.

The sequel follows the further adventures of former toy-company executive Scott Calvin (Tim Allen), who assumed the role of Santa after the big guy fell off his roof. He's still bound to the job because of a contract he agreed to unintentionally, but in the intervening years he's grown quite comfortable and, well, jolly, at the North Pole.

But wait. There's more fine print. If he doesn't get married before Christmas, he can't be Santa anymore. So it's back south for Scott, who in a reversal of the first film starts getting thinner and losing his white hair and beard.

Disney has reassembled all the major players from the first "Santa Clause": Wendy Crewson as Scott's ex-wife (she's still boring), Judge Reinhold as her husband and, most distressingly, Eric Lloyd as Scott's son, Charlie.

If you recall, the first movie was mostly about browbeating Charlie out of believing what he knows is true--that his father is Santa Claus--and using his belief as ammunition in a custody battle. It was nasty, excruciating stuff, and Lloyd's whiny, blubbering performance made it worse.

What's Charlie up to these days? Why, he's vandalizing his high school because his meanie principal--get this--won't spring for Christmas decorations. Christmas in these films is a secular holiday that everybody celebrates, so endorsement of religion by a public school isn't the issue. The principal has simply lost her Christmas spirit.

Since the principal, Carol Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell), happens to be a hottie--and the rest of the world's available women are represented by "Saturday Night Live" alum Molly Shannon in a horrifying blind date scene--Charlie's ridiculous behavior sets up Carol as the only candidate for Mrs. Claus.

Director Michael Lembeck and his five credited screenwriters can't sustain the romantic plot, so they fill out the movie with other mythic figures, allowing limp cameos from Kevin Pollak (Cupid) and Peter Boyle (Father Time). (The worst of these: the Easter Bunny, a sleazy fellow in a cheap rabbit suit who jokes about having "33,000 offspring.")

To fill Santa's shoes while he's out courting, the elves create a plastic clone (Allen again) who begins running the North Pole like a fascist dictator. And we get the requisite jokes about reindeer flatulence, which got the biggest laughs from a theater full of kids who squirmed though the talky, stilted romance and the cloying confrontations between Charlie and his father.

A sequel to "The Santa Clause" was inevitable; why it took so long is the only mystery. But there's no joy in returning to a well that was dry to begin with. "The Santa Clause 2" is all canned charm and superficial magic--the emptiest kind of holiday bauble.

— Ben Nuckols, The Associated Press