Part one was such a massive hit that the 2020 holiday season brought us The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two, with Chris Columbus now taking full directorial control. Following part one's modest introduction to our new rugged, badass Santa, this one features some serious world-building, with a cool, mystic origin story for Santa, as well as introducing a bunch of colourful new characters.
This one gives Santa a nemesis, a naughty "cursed" elf named Belsnickel, played by Hunt for the Wilderpeople's Julian Dennison trying on his best, scowly face. This one goes even heavier on the special effects but has slightly less focus on Russell's Santa, which is to its detriment, though that doesn't stop it from being enjoyable.
This time, "True Believer" Kate is on the cusp of being a teenager who, despite being flown off to Cancun for the holidays, still finds time to be a misery-guts. That's because widowed mum (Kimberley Williams-Paisley) is now being courted by irritating try-hard Bob (Tyrese Gibson) who's brought his nerdy son Jack (Jahzir Bruno) along for the trip. All signs suggest Bob's gonna propose and Kate is not cool with that.
In the meantime, nefarious ex-elf (it's complicated) Belsnickel plots his revenge against Santa for exiling him from the North Pole way back when. The elfin villain uses Santa's mate Kate as bait and before we know it, she and Jack are whisked off to Santa's village to hang out with St Nick and Mrs Claus, played by Russell's real-life missus Goldie Hawn.
The plot involves ta quest to track down some magical Christmas ornament named "The Star of Bethlehem,” giving us a glimpse of Santa's biblical origins and the genesis of his North Pole workshop, while we also meet a cranky elf voiced by Malcolm McDowell, so that's something.
I feel bad for Judah Lewis' Teddy in this one, who is reduced to nothing more than a cameo. Little Jack is a much more annoying replacement in an overly chirpy Disney Channel kids show kind of way, though it's hard to hate him too much because he does Save Christmas.
It's full of whimsical ideas and impressive visuals like Santa's stunning North Pole village and the filmmakers obviously sensed the love for the furry lil' elves in part one. So in this one, the little rascals get even more screen time and there's flippin' thousands of them, getting up to suitably adorable, mischievous antics. The stroke of genius here is having Belsnickel turn all the elves crazy with magical "Elfs Bane", so this time they're all running around like mad little giggling Gremlins laying siege to the North Pole.
We get exploding Christmas cookies, an impressive CGI snow leopard thing, a high-speed, airbound sleigh race and even a bit of time-travel as Santa and Kate stop off at Chicago's O'Hare airport in the early '90s. This bit's all just an excuse for Russell to sing another overblown rockin' Christmas tune with accompaniment from Darlene Love (again!).
Part Two is an odd, vividly scintillating and inventive film that never gets boring. While watching, I wonder if any little kids while channel surfing might ever come across beardy Kurt Russell in Tarantino's similarly snowy but most definitely not for children The Hateful Eight and mistakenly think that they've discovered a new, ultra-violent Santa adventure? That would be messed up but hilarious.
I don't enjoy this one anywhere near as much as part one but it has charm to spare and enough vivid, light-hearted action to keep the family entertained. Amelia much prefers this one - no doubt due to its higher elf content - and I'm happy that we've found a film that we can snuggle up and enjoy together.
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