I don't know if I am or not but perhaps Mr. Black has run his course and it might be time for him to take a bit of a break or pull an Adam Sandler and perhaps try his hand at some sort of serious role instead of just playing the same super-hyped bearded guy in yet another movie. That is what he is in this movie and to be fair to Jack, this role seems to have been built around his already well-established persona and they did so without considering any other aspect of the film, including whether or not anyone else in the cast was actually capable of acting - which for the most part, they are not.
My source of films is affected by the Christmas season just like anyone else's are and had it not been for this fact, I likely wouldn't have known that this film was released at all and well, I think that was intentional on the part of the people who made it as well as Jack Black. The plot sounded interesting enough and when I read that one of the Farrelly brothers was a co-writer, a director, and a producer, I thought there was no chance that this movie could be bad. Spoiler alert! It is really bad.
The premise goes like this: A shy but good-hearted teen who has dyslexia is at a new school and struggles socially. He also hangs on to childish notions such as believing in Santa-Claus. So he writes a letter to Santa like he has always done but since he is dyslexic he actually ends up writing it to Satan.
To me that sounded like it could have been pretty funny and if they had made this rated-R I think it could have been but I guess to try to market this film to kids they went for a PG-13 route instead which simply means that there is a tiny bit of stating of "shit" and "bitch" in the movie but other than that it is squeaky clean and never crosses over into anything that could be considered more than poop-humor as far as how risque it is.
I understand why movies like this are made though because if somehow it ends up being a hit they have an excuse to release it every single year until the end of time. Home Alone and Die Hard still pull in millions in royalties every year when they are put on networks and streaming services and Jingle all the Way, which is terrible, is normally also up there as well.
I'm afraid that Dear Santa is just completely lacking in substance, likeable characters, or a coherent story. Instead it seems as though everyone in the cast was some sort of outreach program except for Jack Black - who they likely just gave a bunch of cocaine to and told him to "do his magic."
Since this is a kid's film it should come as no surprise that Satan is actually a pretty nice guy even though his end goal is to take the soul of the kid that wrote him the letter in the first place. There are life lessons built in there about being nice to people that are different than you and how bullying is wrong and Satan is a big advocate of these things - which is odd but hell, this is for kids and it doesn't need to make sense I guess.
The thing is, I don't think the kids are going to relate to the humor in it either because try as they may to bridge that gap between adults and kids these days, they fail on both fronts.
They even throw a PostMalone concert in there that clearly is NOT a Post Malone concert because the venue is way too small and well this is where my obliviousness in youth culture kicks in. Is Post Malone a big part of the lives of 12 year old's? I don't think this was intentional but Post Malone is one of the few people in the entire cast that is actually capable of convincing acting. I know that he has been in a few things and has shined but her really shines here because the people on screen, especially the kids, are just awful.
Should I watch it?
I was severely disappointed in this movie and don't think you should but if you do then watch it with the fast-forward button in hand and maybe it will be tolerable. I don't think that even Paramount has any faith in this film making it and if we were in another time this would have definitely been straight-to-DVD.
Paramount even buried this release and it wasn't really talked about at all outside of a very small internet advertising initiative.
I know that my opinion well might be a bit tainted though because I have been a fan of Tenacious-D before Jack Black was ever in any movies and that was a long time ago. Therefore, I might be more sick of his usual acting than most people. That doesn't change the fact that this feel-good movie is filled with bad acting and bad writing though and the jokes simply aren't funny. I don't recall so much as cracking a smile throughout the entire thing.
I don't think this is good for kids either because even though there are some messages in there about being nice, even on the part of Satan, there is a lot of unnecessary foul-mouth sections that you might not want your kids emulating. I know nothing about the youth of today though so perhaps this is really tame by their standards as well.
I couldn't get into it and I really tried two times to make that happen hoping there was something magical that I was missing: There wasn't.
The only legal way to watch this at the moment is with a Paramount subscription