The Santa Incident (2010) Ali Lyons, Scott Graham, James Cosmo, Ione Skye Movie Review

The Santa Incident (2010)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Ali Lyons and James Cosmo in The Santa Incident (2010)

Incidental

As an adult "The Santa Incident" is a hard slog of a movie which dishes out some Christmas movie cliches but ignores the most important ingredient, Christmas Magic. But then "The Santa Incident" is really a movie made for young children who won't be put off by poor acting, cliche ideas and will hopefully warm to James Cosmo as Santa Claus, although at times he sounds more like Captain Birdseye than the jolly old fellow. So if you want a Christmas movie to keep young children occupied for an hour and a half "The Santa Incident" should work, just don't waste time watching it with them.

When something shows up on a jet pilot's radar the pilot is given the order to shoot it out of the sky. What the pilot doesn't realise is that he has just shot Santa Claus (James Cosmo - The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising) out of the sky and with 5 days left till Christmas day it seems that Christmas may be ruined. Santa is discovered unconscious on the floor of a dock by children Daniel (Scott Graham) and Sophia (Ali Lyons) who get him to the hospital where their mum Joanna (Ione Skye - The Perfect Catch) works. Initially sceptical when the guy who calls himself Nick also says he is Santa things get mysterious with two agents trying to track him down.

Ione Skye in The Santa Incident (2010)

You could basically call "The Santa Incident" a collection of Christmas cliches which starts with that old favourite of a man who says he is Santa but no one believes him except the youngest child. Then you can add to that Daniel who is down because Christmas reminds him of the year his father walked out on the family and he blames himself. And then we have Santa having to desperately create toys whilst he is stuck in suburbia or else there will be some very unhappy children out there. The only thing different is that we have two agents of the clumsy variety who have a touch of the X-Files about them and are desperate to prevent Nick from getting back to the North Pole. None of which has any depth and plays out as it is, a series of fun Christmas cliches.

Now as mentioned for young children "The Santa Incident" will be a festive distraction, the sort of movie they can watch when you need to be getting on with something undisturbed. But for adults it is monotonous because of its cliche ridden familiarity but more importantly it fails because it doesn't have any Christmas magic about it. As such it is certainly not a Christmas movie which will linger long in your memories once it is finished and some may say the sooner your can forget it the better.

For me "The Santa Incident" only had two things going for it one of which is Greg Germann as Agent Erickson with his comical take on the whole X-Files things. The other is James Cosmo who at least tries to embody Santa Claus although at times the accent drops in to more pirate captain meets Captain Birdseye than Father Christmas.

What this all boils down to is that "The Santa Incident" is okay for young children with its various Christmas cliches but for adults it is unimaginative and monotonous.

Tags: TV Christmas Movies, Santa Claus, Christmas Movies


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