Reaction & Review | Santa with Muscles

Welcome, one and all, to the "Reaction & Review Christmas in July Special". Yeah, guys, I'm gonna go ahead and throw my hat into this weird holiday because why not? Anyway, I've decided to cover a Christmas movie for this month, and I have found a movie that is going to be perfect for this special. It is a family film from 1996. That movie is "Santa with Muscles".

Now, I don't really know much about this movie, outside of who stars in it. I know that the movie stars Hulk Hogan. Which sounds pretty cool, because being that I am a fan of wrestling, this movie has already sold me on it because it stars Hulk Hogan. Speaking of which, I haven't really seen any movies where he had a leading role. The only times I've ever seen him in movies was when he made cameo appearances in "Rocky III" and "Gremlins 2". Other than that, I haven't seen stuff like "Suburban Commando", "No Holds Barred", "Mr. Nanny", or any movies that he had a part in. Tonight, I'm going to change that by checking out this film.

I really haven't really checked out what this movie is about, because I wanted to go into this movie as blind as possible. But from what I can gather, it involves Hulk Hogan beating up bad guys while dressed as Santa. Which sounds like the kinda cheesy, stupid, fun that I actually might enjoy. I'm kinda hoping there's more context to this, but I am going to find out right now. And the only way I'm gonna do that, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Santa with Muscles".

2 minutes later

So, let me see if I understand this letter that this little girl is writing to Santa. So this guy named Mr. Frost is being mean to the people of the village where this little girl lives, and they all move away because he's been mean to them. Rather than calling the police, so that they can maybe do something about it, this little girl thinks that Santa is going to go help them instead? What sense does that make?! I understand it's a family film, but it seems a little bit stupid to me that you couldn't get the police to help control this guy that's supposedly causing trouble. It just seems a little bit weird to me, you know?

13 minutes later

Well, guys, I think I know now why the village doesn't rely on the police. When your force is led by Clint Howard, then it's just going to lead to nothing but disaster. At least I know now that if I ever visited Lakeville for whatever reason, I'm probably never going to ask Clint Howard to find my cat. That's how useless he is.

20 minutes later

So the title of this movie comes from a newspaper headline? That's...kinda stupid. But it's leagues better than name dropping a main character through someone's dead daughter from "Valentine: The Dark Avenger". So at least there is that.

10 minutes later

You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this little girl's singing is fucking terrible. She sounds almost tone deaf, and if I have to hear her sing again in this movie, then I fear it's going to be incredibly torturous.

18 minutes later

I will say, guys, that was kind of a creative plan from these scientists on getting to trick Blake into thinking that he wasn't wanted by the orphanage anymore. It's kinda stupid that Blake believes it automatically without questions, but still, at least their plan was kinda creative.

8 minutes later

You know, guys, there's something incredibly charming when Blake is doing something rather dickish, such as using his products to out maneuver the police, which are unfortunately led by Clint Howard. I kinda hoped he wouldn't appear again in this movie, but at least it's further proof that the police in this town are incredibly useless.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Santa with Muscles". I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. Well, that was certainly an interesting film. Mind you, it has it's problems, but, to be honest, a lot of it is going to be incredibly minor. Now I'm not saying that this is a great movie, but I'll get more into that later on.

Before I get into the review itself, I need to address something first. Because this is something that I feel needs to be known. You see, I try to avoid a lot of family type Christmas films. And the reason being is that most of them are kinda samey. Now, that's not to say I don't hate them, I just don't really see myself watching those films too much. The only real exception to me hating on those films is when I was stupid enough to try and watch any Christmas movies from the Hallmark Channel. Where most of those movies would rehash a ton of the same plots from other Christmas films put out by the Hallmark Channel, and there is no life, or soul, put into any of them whatsoever. Now there are certain movies that I do enjoy watching around Christmas. For example, I will watch the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials anytime that they're airing on TV. And occasionally, I will watch the first "Santa Clause" movie with Tim Allen, because that movie is fantastic. And thanks to this series, I was able to add "The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas" to that list of Christmas films I'll watch every year. But aside from those, I don't really watch a ton of other Christmas movies. You see, my method in watching films around Christmas time has to do with it's season. What I mean by that is I'll watch movies that are related to the winter season. For example, I'll watch movies such as "Pokemon: The Movie 2000", "Sailor Moon S: Hearts in Ice", "Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero", etc. You can kinda notice a pattern with some of those movies, aside from the fact that they have a wintery feel to them. Which, I totally understand that it sounds fucking stupid, but it's just something that I, personally, like watching around Christmas time. So, you can kinda see where I'm going with this. I don't watch a lot of Christmas-esque films, because I don't find a lot of them to be interesting. Now, if I were to rank in "Santa with Muscles" in all of this, I would say...it's something I might watch every couple of years. Because while the movie is certainly decent, it's not something that I'm gonna go out of my way in watching every year. But I still think what is here works. And it works fine for a Christmas family film.

I suppose that I should get into the writing. The writing here is...OK, at best. Now, one big positive I can give this movie's writing is the pacing. This is, quite possibly, one of the best paced Christmas films I've seen in a long time. And that's saying a lot, because I mentioned earlier that I was stupid enough to watch some Christmas movies from the Hallmark Channel. One other issue that I had with them was the pacing in some of those movies. It ranges from either the writing in some of those films having no fucking plot whatsoever, or it's just crawling at a snail's pace because the movie doesn't know where it wants to go. This movie, however, shows that you can have great pacing, and still tell a decent story while you're at it. Our characters here are kinda shallow. Which includes the kids at this orphanage, our villains being rather cartoony, and the grown-ups who are taking care of the children at the orphanage. Most of them have no real depth to their characters, but it was something that I was kinda expecting going into this movie. And I know that there are those who might have a higher standard when it comes to character development. I, myself, care about that kind of thing, too. However, one other thing that I mentioned before in my reviews is that if a movie is not going to go the extra mile in giving characters a ton of depth, at least give the viewer a reason as to why we should care about any of these characters. And, to a certain extent, it kinda works here. Nobody here is painfully irritating. Well, except for maybe one or two of them, but I'll get to them in a bit. But anyway, nobody here is painfully irritating, to a point where you won't wish for them to just die a sweet and painful death. Not that it was going to happen in this movie, but you get my point. There is one character I'm a little disappointed in, which would have to be the main character, Blake, who is Hulk Hogan's character in this movie. At the start of the film, Blake is shown to be a billionaire who really only cares about himself, and his image. And by image, I'm talking about his products that he sells, which has his face plastered on them. And he's really at his best when he's outrunning the police that are led by Clint Howard. Because before the police chase after him, Blake is seen playing paintball with his servants. And when he and another guy were on the run from the police, Blake would use tactics such as shooting his paintball gun at Clint Howard's squad car. Or much later on in the movie, he would use his own products to outrun the police. And during all this, Blake is just lovably dickish. Especially knowing that, even though he has technically become a better person later on in the movie, he would still find ways to be a dick towards the police that are after him. And that, to me, is when Blake was at his best. But when he becomes "Santa", his personality is about as interesting as dried paint. Now, I totally understand why his character is like that, because he had gotten amnesia after he was trying to hide from Clint Howard and another officer, who were trying to find him, while Blake was barely hiding in a trash chute. Which, I'm kinda curious as to how Clint and the officer didn't see the white gloves that were holding onto the railing while they were trying to find Blake, but that only proves even further how stupid Clint Howard's character in this movie is. But still, Blake's character as "Santa" is not all that interesting. But, then again, it still makes some level of sense as to why Blake is "Santa". I kinda wish his personality was more interesting when he lost his memories, but that's really the only issue I had with this movie's writing. And even then, most people are not going to notice that, or even care. But I still feel like it was worth mentioning.

Beyond that one issue, the writing here is still OK. It's just that the characters are rather shallow. However, you kinda have to go in this movie with some low expectations. Because if you go into this movie and thinking that you're going to get mountains of character depth, you're not going to find any of that here. Now let's get to the acting. And the acting here is an incredibly mixed bag. I'm gonna start with Hulk Hogan, because that makes the most sense. Hogan's acting in this movie is incredibly cheesy, especially in the moments where he acts incredibly dickish, such as when he's outrunning the cops. And his acting is just lovably cheesy, that you're probably going to get a smile out of it, because I can tell you that Hogan was having a blast with this role just by sheer body language. And if he were playing more straight up and serious, then his acting would've suffered, and it would've made the movie incredibly shit. Now, I totally understand that there are those who can't stand cheesy acting. And if you're one of those people, then you're probably going find Hulk Hogan's acting in this movie to be wooden, and kinda shit. But me, personally, I got use to this kinda cheesy acting really quickly. Partially because, I do like cheesy acting, as long as it's not trying too hard to be so bad it's funny. Now, there a couple of actors I did recognize in this movie, and both of them are related, in a way. One of them is a young Mila Kunis, who is one of the child actors in this movie. Most people will recognize her as Jackie from "That 70's Show", and as the voice of Meg from "Family Guy". And I will say that her acting is pretty good, especially when you consider the standards when it comes to child acting. The other actor is Don Stark, who is Blake's elf friend, I guess. He's also from "That 70's Show", because he plays the character of Bob, who was Donna's father in that show. Now, I didn't recognize him, up until very late in the film, and that's when I recognized him as Bob from "That 70's Show". And his acting is also fairly decent. So to have both actors who would later go on to be on "That 70's Show" is actually kinda cool.

If there was any bad acting I had to pick from this movie, it would have to go to two of them. One of them is Clint Howard. For those who don't know, he is the brother of Ron Howard. And when compared to his brother, Clint is just absolutely terrible in this movie. Not just himself, but his character in this movie was completely shit. He really doesn't put in that much effort in this movie, which wasn't really too surprising, because I had no hopes for him in this movie when I first saw him on screen. So, his acting was shit, even if it was to be expected from him. The other actor who was terrible in this movie was the child actress who played Elizabeth. She was absolutely horrible in this movie. And I'm not saying that just because she is a child actor, but her acting was just terrible in general. And when you compare it with the other child actors in this film, it really stands out. Because the other main kids in this movie, including the background child actors at the mall, were pretty good. But when you listen to her speak, it almost sounds like she has no idea what she's doing in this movie. Not only is her acting terrible, but her singing is also shit, too. But that's more attributed to the fact this child actress sounded almost tone deaf when she was asked to sing. So, she was the worst child actor in this entire movie. But everyone other child actor at least tried. So, it's kind of a trade off. You'll mostly get fairly decent acting from the children in this movie, but the actress playing Elizabeth was just fucking terrible all around. So overall, the acting is a rather mixed bag. But it's not enough to ruin the entire movie for you, unless you have higher expectations when it comes to the acting.

The only real special effect that I came across in this movie was anything involving electricity. It's especially noticeable on one of our villains, because she has these gloves that spark electricity. And the special effects involving electricity are OK. Like, it's nothing to be amazed by, but it's certainly decent, especially for the standards of special effects from 1996. There's also a couple of shots involving CG, and it's just kinda there. You might notice it, or you won't. Either way, special effects are average at best.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Again, it's nothing amazing, but it's certainly filmed well enough. Lighting here is really good. Sound-mix is mixed properly. I do want to touch upon music, because this is something that I noticed when I was watching this movie. This might sound like a weird thing to complain about, but for a movie involving Christmas, there really isn't a lot of Christmas music being played in this movie. Which is rather surprising, because I was expecting this movie to have a ton of Christmas music. But strangely, you don't hear a lot of it in this movie. The score here is a rather generic score you would hear in family comedies and children's films. And while none of it is remotely horrible, it's nothing that you're going to remember this movie by. The only real time you would hear Christmas music is when the movie has to be at this mall, where Blake starts to become Santa. Other than that, there is a surprisingly lack of Christmas music in this movie. Again, I totally understand that it's a strange thing to be bitching about, but it was something that I noticed, so you have to take it for what you will. Other than the lack of Christmas music, the music here is incredibly forgetful.

Overall, guys, can I recommend "Santa with Muscles"? I can recommend it to children, because children will probably adore this thing. Because if they're fans of wrestling, and they know who Hulk Hogan is, then they're going to love this thing. And if you, yourself, are a fan of Hulk Hogan, you're probably going to find something out of this thing, too. Also, if you're a fan of cheesy, stupid Christmas films like "Jingle All the Way", by all means, check it out. It certainly has enough charm to where you can overlook most of the flaws that this movie has. However, if you have higher expectations when it comes to Christmas movies, and you don't like cheesy acting, then there's no way I can recommend this thing. Especially knowing that this movie was only in theaters for about two weeks, before being pulled out of them for how poorly this movie did. But I still think it's worth watching, at least, once. And like I said, if you enjoy these sorts of stupid, cheesy family films, you're probably going to end up loving it. I, myself, enjoyed watching this thing quite a bit. I still don't think it's worth watching every year for Christmas, but I still might watch it again every couple of years or so. Now, as for myself, I think I'm gonna go and watch another family film. And I see my copy of "Babe" on my DVD shelf. I'm gonna go watch that. In fact, I have both "Babe" and "Babe: Pig in the City" as part of a 2-pack. I'm gonna just marathon both of those, because I'm kinda in the mood to watch another family film.

And with that, we come to the close of the first "Christmas in July Special" for Reaction & Review. I don't know if I will do this kind of special again, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.