DEAR SANTA (2024)

SYNOPSIS: When a young boy accidentally sends a Christmas letter with one crucial spelling error, he gets an unexpected visit from NOT Santa (Jack Black). From the hilarious minds behind DUMB & DUMBER, Christmas is about to go up in flames. 

MOVIE REVIEW:

The Farrelly brothers, Peter and Bobby have made successful slapstick, crude comedies liked Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary until Peter directed an Oscar worthy movie called Green Book. We thought it’s going to strategically change the brothers’ career path but with the release of Dear Santa, we doubt it’s anytime soon.

Dumped straight to streaming with little to no marketing, Jack Black (yes that Jack Black from Tenacious D, School of Rock and Kung Fu Panda) stars as Satan in Dear Santa. A dyslexic sixth-grader Liam Turner (Robert Timothy Smith who also stars as Neel in Skeleton Crew), accidentally misspells "Santa" as “Satan" on his Christmas wishlist and the very same night, Satan pops in for a visit.

Believing Satan to be Santa, Liam accepts his offer when Satan offers to grant the latter three wishes in exchange for his soul. First being a date with his school crush, Emma and the second to fix his bestie, Gibby’s teeth.

There are traces of the Farrelly brothers’ best-known comedic trademarks but they are somehow lost in this low-budget tele-affair. There is hardly a memorable gag or joke in the entire movie that everyone involved seems to just cruising along for a paycheck. A prolonged fart joke involving a school teacher is probably the only juvenile or what you called embarrassing gag that leaves you chuckling in disgust.

There’s supposedly some meaningful messages behind all the mayhem liked Liam trying to save his parents’ crumbling marriage which we learned is caused by the death of his brother. But hold your horses, the macabre ending is closer to Pet Sematary than a heartfelt Christmas movie.

Oh and then, there is of course Jack Black trying his best to salvage the lacklustre scripting with this enthusiastic performance. To be fair, he is a ball of energy whenever he appears on screen but there is only so much he can deliver. There’s an uncredited cameo by a certain big name comedian that is also wasted in the whole forgettable affair.

Neither funny or relevant to the festive season, Dear Santa is a wasted opportunity given the talents involved. There’s also appearances by Keegan-Michael Key and Post Malone just to be clear. In short, the Farrelly brothers got to work harder and not churning out something that is worth much lesser than their 90’s efforts.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee