SimonJack One wonders why Hallmark aired this Christmas-theme movie in the summer. "Christmas in July," perhaps? Whatever the reason, it's not a very good film. Much more fairy tale than romance, it's quite far out. It may appeal some to little kids and families. But it may have trouble holding older children and adults. Steve Guttenberg's Nicholas, or "Nick," is a likeable and kind guy; but he's gushing over with it here ad nauseam. His "Ho, ho, ho" laughter a few times is terribly hokey. He even draws a somewhat scornful look from Beth the first time, as though this might not have been rehearsed and she thought it wasn't quite right. Crystal Bernard plays Beth, who appears to be non-stop working in this film. She has a boss that doesn't let up. Yet, for all her nights and weekends of work, she still has time for her son and a friendship or two. It's a little hard to figure that out. Unless she may have to work nights because she's off so often during the daytime with Nick and others. Anyway, if anyone worked as much as the movie tries to tell us she does, they would probably look a little haggard and show some physical signs of tiredness. But, Beth is perkier than ever after another light night of work.This film just doesn't work, even with the dwarf people in the cast who serve as elves.

jc-osms My wife and I will watch any old Christmas related rubbish at this time of year and this fairly sappy, silly movie certainly fits that category. Steve Guttenburg, looking like Will "Elf" Ferrell's kid brother, stars and generally gets to goof around as Santa Claus's son, Nicholas naturally, charged by his father to find a wife to settle down with and take with him to Lapland for the rest of her days. Tracked and urged on by Santa's rather dour little helper, he saves the life of an unbelieving single-mum workaholic advertising executive career woman, played by Crystal Bernard. Rather conveniently, she's recently widowed and bringing up her young son alone, but before you can say "A partridge in a pear tree", encouraged by her young son, the two gradually come together as a couple but can they do so by the deadline of Christmas Day? Well, what do you think?! The plot as you can tell borrows from "Elf" but with even more schmaltz and sentimentality with the kid son looking conveniently like a brother of MacAulay Culkin. The comedy is very mild and obviously family-oriented but you can't believe in the wholesome winsomeness of Guttenburg and Barnard, the former only identifying us as to his true identity by giving it "Ho Ho Ho" any chance he can get. I did like the touch of Claus Jr making like a universal translator for the oration of a store Santa for a variety of different nationalities, but in the end the Chrstmas pudding is over-egged and over-syruped to the point that your teeth may fall out just watching it.

Mandy Hardy-Cane To me, the only annoying thing about the movie was Nick's laugh. I realize that as Santa, he has to "ho ho ho" sometimes, but I didn't like hearing it every single time he laughed. Other than that, it was a great movie. Crystal Bernard is beautiful and always likable and the kid who played her son was a doll, too. You have to remember that Christmas movies are, as a general rule, not going to be Oscar winners. You have to like the genre first, and if you don't, you probably won't like most Christmas movies and should stay away from them (while muttering "Bah! Humbug!" to yourself!!!!). This one is better than most.

Michael O'Keefe Made-for-TV, tame and lame. Must be the season of stupidity. Santa Claus(John Wheeler)is considering retirement and wants to turn over the reigns to his son Nick(Steve Guttenberg). But Santa is concerned because his son has yet to settle down become a family man. Ernst(Armiln Shimerman)actually runs the operations at the North Pole; and he hand picks three candidates for Nick to approve of. Nick surprisingly falls in love with a single mother Beth(Crystal Bernard), who has lost the Christmas spirit long, long ago. Will she be the next Mrs. Claus? Hokey deluxe. Also in the cast: Thomas Calabro, Dominic Scott Kay and Wendy Braun.