The infamous Christmas film from Mexico has been widely known to be one of the worst of it's kind, up there with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Santa Claus has become easy to mock, truth be told though, I sorta enjoyed it. It's not good, the movie drags at various points and there's no denying that it's incredibly racist, but it can also be creative, fun and interesting, regarding the myth of Santa himself. Again, the film has large issues, but the more I wanted to laugh at the bizarre take on Santa, the more I realized how unique and fun the imagination behind it was.
Let's get the negativity out of the way, yes this is racist, it's not surprising for the time, but that still doesn't absolve the issue, it just makes me understand the careless choice. We see Santa employs children from around the world to make toys, which is an odd alternative of the elves, but this is largely where the film is racist, the kids, you see, are all stereotypes of the nation they come from. The film opens with the role call of the children's nations the African kids are all dressed in nothing but loin cloths, the Japanese are all in kimonos, the British sing about London bridge falling, and well, you get the idea. Despite the racism, I do think the idea was not a bad one (Tim Allen's take on Santa likely even enjoyed it as well) while I don't think the film ever gives a reason why it's kids helping, if the film had explained that these are all orphans Santa takes care of, yeah, that would be a cute, neat idea. Of course the racism wouldn't clear the film, but it would've made that aspect a touch better.
Outside of that and the film dragging, yeah I thought it had a lot of cute ideas. Pitch, the Devil's assistant as an antagonist is pretty fun, silly, but fun in a kids show way. I liked the idea that Santa gets helped by one of the most known wizards of all time, sure Merlin is weird as an addition, but honestly it's cool to see Santa receiving help from other legends. In fact, if I pinned down why the film drags as much as it does, it's likely due to the film deciding to explain so much of their take on the Santa myth, it's all creative, but surely there was a way to make everything move naturally.
While it's true I laughed at so much of this film, largely because of unintentional reasons, I can't deny there was a charm to what it brought to Santa, it's dumb but cute overall.
P.S. Santa is apparently Jesus or something in this.
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