Dear Santa (2024)

December 10, 2024 6:06 PM

[Trailer] 6th grader Liam writes to Santa asking him to prove that he's real. But Liam is dyslexic and accidentally sends his letter to Satan (Jack Black) instead. Get it? Because he's dyslexic. So Satan gives him three wishes or some bullshit.
posted by DirtyOldTown (9 comments total)

I am overly forgiving of latter era Jack Black and silly Christmas movies, but this is unwatchable horseshit.

I didn't even make it to the famously, jaw-droppingly wrongheaded ending. Go ahead and Google it if you want. Or don't.

This might actually be the rarest type of Hollywood Christmas movie: one so bad, it doesn't have a big contingent of people watching it every year forever.

It's inert. It just sits there, like a turd too big to flush. The acting is bad, the jokes are bad, the pacing is leaden, the Santa/Satan premise is played far too straight to ever work, the family grieving a dead kid setup is horrifying next to these jokes.

Jingle All the Way is freaking Miracle on 34th Street next to this.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:09 PM on December 10, 2024 [7 favorites]

I Googled. Haha whaaaaaaaaaaaat?
posted by joelhunt at 6:32 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

DOT, you're setting up the cinematic scenario of "Geez, this smells bad, you won't believe how bad this smells!"

But...geez, I didn't like Jingle All the Way, so maybe I'll just hold my nose after all and google the ending.

I did and I dunno. I can envision how that ending makes sense in the context of the rules of the wish making. But now as I learn about the film, I see it as definitely being influenced by It's A Wonderful Life, instead of an angel getting their wings, instead of the absence of someone resulting in the death of another, and so on.

Ah well, I'll skip this regardless!
posted by Atreides at 7:01 AM on December 11, 2024

You know my weaknesses. I looked up the plot on wikipedia. What the actual theological fuck. Jingle all the why?

not that I wouldn't watch the hell out of a sitcom about someone who has to cover for his resurrected brother, who is constantly threatened by nutjobs who think he's in league with the devil, nutjobs who think he's actually jesus, scientists who want to study/dissect him, and a shadowy thiel-like billionaire who wants to harvest his blood to live forever; waiting for hulu to call me back

posted by phooky at 9:00 AM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]

It's inert. It just sits there, like a turd too big to flush.

I used to write movie reviews for an alternative newsweekly back when that was a thing people could actually do for a living. If I'd written the line above, I would've been so freaking proud of myself. It's just such a perfect, punk rock "fuck you, movie."
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:39 PM on December 11, 2024 [7 favorites]

Haven't watched it yet but the plot sounds very similar to an animated short, Dear Satan, that I've bookmarked and added to our holiday rotation .
posted by MadMadam at 11:46 PM on December 11, 2024

I can't believe they made A Church Lady skit into a movie in 2024...
posted by mmoncur at 2:06 AM on December 12, 2024

My family saw this last night and weren't impressed. My younger kid loves Christmas so we end up watching all the Christmas movies at least once, and yesterday was Dear Santa's turn. I think the movie could have been saved if they had more Jack Black being Jack Black, if he used his normal voice, not the deeper voice he used as Satan, and fixed that ending. It came out of nowhere, made the movie worse, and also raised too many questions right at the end.

I think we'll be watching Red One tonight, wish us luck!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:13 PM on December 23, 2024 [1 favorite]

I didn't think it was the best movie ever, but it was totally watchable, and far too relatable.

I thought the false ending with Ben Stiller's character from Dodgeball as the real satan was good, though I agree the actual ending was pretty bad. It's too bad - they could have ended on the car scene with everything back to normal and the kid wishing for some toy or whatever, and it would have been a gem.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:36 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]