Delayed Reaction: The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

The Pitch: Hey Tim, put on the fat suit again. Martin Short wants to turn heel.

How I Came Into It: The first movie is original and funny, worthy of being in any holiday rotation. The second movie is quite as essential. It's still kind of fun. I assumed this would have a similar drop.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This isn't appreciably worse than the second movie. Martin Short was built to play a character as big as Jack Frost. Bringing in Alan Arkin and Jane Fonda shakes things up too. There's hints of A Christmas Carol in this that naturally works.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I just got the feeling that Disney showed up at all the actors' doors and reminded then that they signed a contract to do three of these movies and wouldn't let them out of it. This is a needless sequel, and here's the thing about Christmas movies: they don't need sequels. They either stand alone or they don't need to exist. No one is sitting down saying "Let's watch the Santa Clause trilogy" and even fewer people are picking anything but the first one when they have a spare 90 minutes.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend