3.5 out of 10
Release Date: 29th November 2013
Director: Leon Joosen & Aaron Seelman
Voice Cast: Martin Freeman, Ashley Tisdale, Tim Curry, Pam Ferris, Noel Clarke, Tim Conway, Mark Ivanir and Joan Collins
Writer: Ricky Roxburgh
Trailer: SAVING SANTA
Saving Santa is a pale remake of another UK seasonal animation feature Arthur Christmas. A sort of British Bollywood equivalent brimming with stolen ideas and an absence of cute or charm, it’s a bit of sad stocking filler rather than a main event. Martin Freeman (THE OFFICE) exposes a lack of care when it comes to Christmas by starring in any old shit (see also Nativity!)
See below review by one of Santa’s ex-employee’s Matt Usher for plot details – because I fell asleep watching this one too. But Saving Santa generally follows the story of one of the North Pole’s biggest underachievers, Bernard D Elf (voiced by Martin Freeman) who instead of clearing up reindeer sh*t wants to be an inventor. Except all his inventions are rubbish except for the one that’s about to save Santa’s (TIM CONWAY) bacon when Tim Curry (CONGO) and Joan Collins’ (THE STUD) evil corporation send in soldiers to invade and try to privatise the whole Christmas distribution business. With the help of Ashley Tisdale’s (HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3) action elf and romantic foil Shiny, his time-travelling bauble could save Christmas for everybody and put him in favour with the meaner, older elves. Still leaves the question, who will sweep up all the poo?
It’s a tough gig being horrible to children’s films and it’s without pleasure that I have to report that this is a non-event, that runs through the motions much like it’s voice lead. It’s dull where it should shine and unfunny where it should be hilarious. It’s a wonder whether there are any parents out there that took their kids to see this on it’s limited cinema run or whether it’s had a second life either on DVD. Any way you turn it, it fails to ignite a sense of wonder about christmas. Which is a great shame. Any cartoon / animation that once included the mighty Craig Fairbrass (ST. GEORGE’S DAY) and Terry Stone (AWAY) as voice artist had to be good but alas they got dubbed over by other people… What’s a mock-gangster to do?
3.5 out of 10 – An unwelcome winter guest. Not the worst christmas film I’ve seen but certainly nowhere near the best. Sad really as I loved this kind of thing once upon a time but I’d probably fell asleep during this one as a kid.
Review by Matt ‘bah humbug’ Usher below
WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?
- Martin Freeman: Fun House, Captain America 3, Fargo (TV), Sherlock (TV), The Hobbit – There and Back Again, The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug, Svengali, The World’s End, The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey, The Pirates In An Adventure With Scientists (voice), What’s Your Number?, Swinging With The Finkels, The Good Night, Wild Target (2010), Nativity!, Nightwatching, Breaking and Entering, Hot Fuzz, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (2006), Love Actually, Confetti, The Low Down, Ali G In Da House, The Office (TV)
- Ashley Tisdale: Sabrina – The Teenage Witch (TV), Phineas and Herbs (TV), Scary Movie 5, High School Musical 3, High School Musical 2
- Tim Curry: Burke and Hare, Garfield 2 (voice), Valiant (voice), Kinsey, Scary Movie 2, Rugrats In Paris (voice), Charlie’s Angels Film, Sorted, The Rugrats Movie (voice), Muppet Treasure Island, Congo, The Shadow, The Three Musketeers (1993), National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1, Home Alone 2, It, Oscar, The Hunt For Red October, Clue, Legend, Blue Money, The Ploughman’s Lunch, Annie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
- Pam Ferris: Call The Midwife (TV), Nativity 2, The Raven, Luther (TV), Malice In Wonderland, Telstar, Nativity!, Children Of Men, Rosemary & Thyme (TV), Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkhaban, Death To Smoochy, Matilda, The Darling Buds of May (TV), Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Meantime
- Noel Clarke: Brotherhood, The Habit of Beauty, The Anomaly, I Am Soldier, Star Trek 2 (2013), The Knot, Storage 24, Fast Girls, Huge, Screwed (2011), Heartless, 4-3-2-1, Centurion, Sex & Drugs & Rock-N-Roll Doghouse, Adulthood, Kidulthood, Dr Who (TV), Auf Wierdesen Pet (TV)
- Mark Ivanir: A Late Quartet, 360, Johnny English 2, Undisputed 3, Holy Rollers, The Good Shepherd, Undisputed 2, Schindler’s List
- Joan Collins: Absolutley Fabulous Movie, Molly Moon, Footballers Wives (TV), The Flintstones 2, The Clandestine Marriage, A Midwinter’s Tale, Decadence, Dynasty (TV), The Bitch, Sunburn, The Stud, The Big Sleep (1978), The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones, Alfie 2, Football Crazy
RISE OF THE ZOMBIE HOOLIGAN FILMS 
REVIEW BY Matt Usher
Dear reader, I must admit before proceeding that I slumbered serenely through most of this film, so I will be unable to unpick it with my customary forensic accuracy and methodical objectivity. However, what my consciousness and subconsciousness did work out was that SAVING SANTA is not very good.
We have here an animation with a good cast, a potentially good story, a dull and tepidly scatological script, bad music, boring visuals and barely a single interesting or funny idea. It’s a film which tries to pour Christmas down your throat but somehow manages to miss, despite being populated by elves, Santa, Mrs Santa and a herd of incontinent reindeer.
Our plot concerns an elf (voiced by popular everyman Martin Freeman) who works in the reindeer sanitation department of Santech (the film depicts the Christmas-gift-delivering operation in the same sort of hi-tech terms as ARTHUR CHRISTMAS but with less glee) (Actually, stop reading this and watch ARTHUR CHRISTMAS right now – it’s a criminally under-rated Aardman offering which is funny, clever and festive – and leave me to ramble on as is my semi-obligation for which my reward is the DVD of SAVING SANTA – sometimes I wonder if I’m getting the most out of this deal). But, being an ambitious underdog and the protagonist of a Christmas film, he wants to be in the inventors’ club but isn’t good enough. In fact he’s so not good enough that he accidentally disables Santech’s cloaking hologram, thus leaving the whole place open to a potential invasion from baddies.
Baddies like Tim Curry and Joan Collins, who just happen to be looking for the elf delivery operation so that they can crush / absorb it and replace it with their own super postal service. So maybe the film is meant to be a satire on Mr Osborne’s recent privatisation of the Royal Mail which handed many millions of pounds of profit overnight to the best man from his wedding whilst simultaneously diminishing the service. Except it turns out that the bad guy wasn’t so bad after all and just wanted a hug or a Christmas present or something because the nationalised Royal Mail service had failed to get his letter to Santa on time or something. So I think the film’s saying that successful businessmen are all emotionally stunted inadequates who didn’t get their own way when they were kids. Maybe.
Needless to say our hapless Martin Freeman elf saves the day, doing so with the aid of a natty time travel gadget. Here the film takes an unexpected turn, basically sending up recent Doctor Who plots and nicking a Phineas and Ferb storyline as well. I don’t think the plot is as cast-iron as it should be (sometimes characters are affected by future events sometimes not) but I can’t be bothered to check. It also seems to be a bit too clever for (a) the very little kids with very low expectations that this film is aimed at, and (b) amateur film critics who are more asleep than awake. Anyway, it all ends happily and dully and probably with an anodyne song.
The producers (who include Terry Stone, a legend in his own lifetime for his performances as assorted gangsters and ne’er-do-wells in a bewilderingly bad range of films) (unless it’s a different Terry Stone) have rounded up a cast seemingly at random. Freeman is obvious casting as the underdog elf, and is in standard Bilbo-Tim mode but with singing. Most of the rest of the cast do exactly what you’d expect of them – Tim Curry is pompously florid and having a good time, Joan Collins is Joan Collins. Tim Conway is an affable, jocular Santa. Ashley Tisdale is good but underused as an elf (and is nowhere near as effective as the would-be fearsome Candice in Phineas and Ferb. Appparently.) Noel Clarke delivers what may be his career best performance as a paranoid secret agent chief interrogator elf. (That really is a compliment by the way. Well, it’s a compliment for his performance here which is very funny. In a good way.)
So there are a fair few things in SAVING SANTA’s favour, but the film is let down by its look. The animation is basic and the design of the characters uninspired. Goodies have round faces, and baddies have slightly less round faces. And that’s about it. It’s garishly colourful without being vibrant, and there are a number of excruciatingly ugly songs which are fortunately so banal that they don’t take up residence in your head. And for a film which is sold mainly around it being cute – well, it’s just not cute enough. I suppose I could go on about this sort of film being good for children as it teaches them about disappointment and the broken promises of DVD covers but there’s no excuse at Christmas for that sort of behaviour. Film-makers of the world, you must do better – this is your future audience you’re disappointing! (And me.)
As with A CHRISTMAS STAR – a film made with scant regard for quality – SAVING SANTA is the worst sort of Christmas film, made seemingly without any interest by those who should be throwing themselves into the project. It’s Christmas tat like the worst decorations, the shoddiest trees, and the crackers that don’t go bang, and never looked like they would in the first place. Coincidentally, snow globes are important to both films’ narratives – perhaps future film-makers might take that as a warning?
In the interests of full disclosure and accountability I must also, dear reader, admit that I watched the new Star Wars film only a day earlier, and it’s just possible that my mind (when it was awake) was elsewhere what with that big thing that happened near the end and everything. But even if the previous film I’d seen had been, say, A CHRISTMAS STAR, SAVING SANTA would still have looked like a desperate cash-in of something else, though I couldn’t tell you what.
PS Star Wars is much better.