The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause



The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause is a 2006 American Christmas fantasy comedy adventure film directed by Michael Lembeck. It is the third and final installment in The Santa Clause trilogy following The Santa Clause and The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause.

The film stars Tim Allen returning as Scott Calvin/Santa Claus and Martin Short as Jack Frost. Allen and Short had previously worked together in the 1997 Disney comedy feature film, Jungle 2 Jungle. Most of the supporting actors from the first two films reprise their roles, with the exception of David Krumholtz, who played Bernard the Arch-elf. It is not clear why he did not reprise the role of Bernard in this film. However, as a result of his absence, Curtis (played by Spencer Breslin), who was previously the Assistant Head Elf, has now been promoted to Bernard's former position. Like the previous film, this film was shot in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Calgary. This was Peter Boyle's final film to be released before he died from cancer one month after its release (The 2008 film All Roads Lead Home would be released posthumously.).

Its production was completed in February 2006. The movie was released in theaters on November 3, 2006 in the US followed by a release date of November 24 for the UK. The DVD and Blu-ray were released on November 20, 2007 in the U.S. and November 12, 2007 for the UK.

Plot
A few years after the second film, Scott Calvin/Santa Claus (Tim Allen), and his wife, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell), are expecting their first child as Christmas Eve approaches. Carol is missing her family, so Scott invites his in-laws, Sylvia and Bud Newman (Ann-Margret and Alan Arkin), up to the North Pole, along with his former wife, Laura (Wendy Crewson), her husband, Neil (Judge Reinhold), and their daughter, Lucy (Liliana Mumy), to keep Mrs. Claus company. Meanwhile, he is summoned to a meeting of the Council of Legendary Figures consisting of Mother Nature (Aisha Tyler), Father Time (Peter Boyle), the Easter Bunny (Jay Thomas), Cupid (Kevin Pollak), the Tooth Fairy (Art LaFleur), and the Sandman (Michael Dorn). Jack Frost (Martin Short) also arrives and is in trouble. He is jealous that he has no holiday or special occasion in his honor, and has been promoting himself during the Christmas season. Mother Nature accuses him of attempting to upstage Santa, and suggests sanctions against him. When Santa says that he is dealing with how to get the in-laws to come without revealing that he is Santa, Jack Frost manages to negotiate a light sentence of community service at the North Pole, helping Santa and the elves put up various Canadian-themed paraphernalia, as Carol's parents believe Scott is a toymaker in Canada.

However, Frost's ultimate goal is to trick Santa into renouncing his position, with unknowing help from Curtis who accidentally blurts out what the Escape Clause is and where it is. Thus, Jack Frost sneaks into Santa's hall of snow globes (which contain images of all the Santas throughout world history) and steals a special one containing Santa Claus (aka Scott Calvin) that will invoke the Escape Clause, in which Santa must hold the Globe and say "I wish I'd never been Santa at all" thus sending him back in time and undoing his career as Santa. When Lucy discovers this crime, Jack Frost freezes her parents and locks her in a closet after threatening to do the same to her if she tells Scott. Jack Frost causes trouble for the family that makes Scott think that he must resign to make things better.

Jack tricks Scott into invoking the Escape Clause by giving him the snow globe disguised as a gift and both are sent back to Scott's front yard in 1994, where Scott caused the original Santa to fall off of his roof and donned his coat. After a brief struggle, Jack causes the original Santa to fall off the roof and manages to grab the coat first making him the new Santa. Scott is sent back to the present day, where his new non-Santa life is a disappointment as he has been the CEO for his old company for the last twelve years and even works on Christmas Eve, with his business taking priority over everything and Charlie loathing him for his lack of attention over the years. When he drives over to Laura's house, she treats him very coldly before telling him that she and Neil divorced because she was miserable in their remarriage, revealing that the new timeline has effects on other people as well. Scott also learns from Laura that he and Carol never married and Carol moved away years ago.

Scott asks where he can find Lucy and Neil, and Laura replies sharply that they have been visiting the North Pole every year since their divorce before handing him a flyer which reads "The North Pole Resort", which Scott immediately recognizes as Jack's handiwork. Before leaving, Scott promises Laura that he will set things right and everything will go back to normal. Wanting to get his Santa job back, Scott flies to the North Pole via commercial airplane and is shocked at what Jack has done: in his new Santa job, Jack Frost has renamed Christmas "Frostmas" and has taken the commercialization of Christmas to the extreme by transforming the North Pole into a tourist attraction (which Scott says reminds him of a Las Vegas lounge), where cheap songs are sung about "Frostmas" and wealthy parents pay to have their children put on the nice list (or poorer families can at least get a toy made for undeserving brats). Scott also sees that the elves have become miserable, unlike the productive workers they were when he was Santa, and all the Reindeer are confined to a petting zoo in front of a line of impatient children waiting to pet them.

He finally meets up with Lucy and Neil, where Neil expresses his resentment toward Scott for causing the separation between him and Laura. At a Broadway-style stage performance, Scott confronts Jack Frost as Santa Claus, who is still aware of his trickery on Scott and realizing he cannot reform Frost, Scott tricks Jack Frost into putting his voice of the Escape Clause on a microphone-like pen and then has Lucy, who is attending the carnival, go steal Jack Frost's snow globe and bring it to him; Jack Frost finds out and takes the globe but Scott then plays the recording of Frost saying "I wish I'd never been Santa at all" thus invoking the Escape Clause and causing him and Jack Frost to be sent back once again to 1994. Scott restrains Jack long enough to let the Scott Calvin of 1994 get the coat thus making him Santa Claus again and taking him back to the North Pole in the present and the family where no time has passed since.

Scott, back as Santa, reconciles with his family and is happier until he sees Lucy, who was freed by Curtis, and informed Scott what Frost did to her parents; Jack is arrested by elf police officers (elficers) and he reveals that he cannot unfreeze his victims unless he is unfrozen himself; Scott and Lucy then use a gift Scott gave her; a snow globe of her warmly hugging a snowman, to unfreeze Jack Frost and reform him to thus resolve the conflicts in the movie; the "Canada" ruse is dropped and Carol tells her parents she is Mrs. Claus, and Scott sees his new baby boy, named Buddy Claus, who is born just 2 hours before he must deliver Christmas gifts.

Cast

 * Tim Allen as Santa Claus / Scott Calvin
 * Martin Short as Jack Frost
 * Elizabeth Mitchell as Mrs. Claus / Carol Calvin
 * Judge Reinhold as Neil Miller
 * Wendy Crewson as Laura Miller
 * Liliana Mumy as Lucy Miller
 * Alan Arkin as Bud Newman
 * Ann-Margret as Sylvia Newman
 * Spencer Breslin as Curtis the Elf
 * Eric Lloyd as Charlie Calvin
 * Aisha Tyler as Mother Nature
 * Peter Boyle as Father Time
 * Michael Dorn as the Sandman
 * Jay Thomas as the Easter Bunny
 * Kevin Pollak as Cupid
 * Art LaFleur as the Tooth Fairy

Critical response
The Santa Clause 3 received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 15%, based on 65 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The site's consensus reads, "Playing Jack Frost as an evil cross between Liza Minnelli and Liberace, Martin Short is a welcome presence, but this tired series continues drawing from its bag of bland gags and dumb slapstick." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 32 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

Eric D. Snider, a reviewer, wrote that Allen did The Santa Clause "The first time with enthusiasm, the second time with affection and the third time for a paycheck." Kyle Smith wrote, "We're getting a turkey and a ham for the holidays. Santa is so dumb he should be demoted to cleaning up after Geoffrey the Giraffe at Toys 'R' Us." Manohla Dargis dismissed the movie (in a three-paragraph review) as "Squeaky clean, but you might die of boredom." Finally, Nathaniel Bell wrote off the film as "Holiday filler, stuffed with unearned emotion and trite sentimentality." In the UK, Mark Kermode described it in 2006 on BBC Radio Five Live as "The cinematic equivalent of tertiary syphilis".

Box office
The first two films had become box-office successes during their opening weekends, but The Santa Clause 3 was beaten by Borat for the #1 spot.

As of February 7, 2007; The Santa Clause 3 made $84,500,122 in North America and a worldwide gross of $110,768,122. The first film made $189,833,357 worldwide at the box-office while the second film made $172,855,065.

DVD & Blu-ray Disc release
The film was released on both standard DVD and high-definition Blu-ray Disc on November 20, 2007.