Director: Jalmari Helander
Starring: Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila
We start off with two dumb kids who are the product of such good
parenting that they can sneak into a dangerous mining operation where they
could be killed at any moment by large, sharp and unpredictable equipment. But
it’s OK, because the miners don’t even notice – they’re too busy listening to
some fat white businessman talk about how they’re about to uncover something
amazing.
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| "Allow me to take all the credit for your hard work!" |
We don’t know what it is yet. But this little kid, named Pietari, has
an idea of what it might be as he looks through his old fairy tale books and
concludes that it must be Santa Claus. But not the bright and happy Coca Cola
Santa Claus of American commercialism; no – this is the evil
children-slaughtering Santa Claus of old, buried under the ice because a bunch
of villagers tricked him out onto it and then buried him in rocks, creating the
mountain that they’re all standing on.
Okay…where the hell do I even start?
For one, what, a little kid solves this whole thing in a matter of one
night while a team of grown men are still confused? I guess there is something
to be said for Occam’s Razor – the
simplest answer is the right answer. And in this case, the simplest answer
is…if there’s a mysterious thing underground, it must be Santa Claus. Indeed.
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| Those footprints look pretty small for the huge creature this movie is saying Santa is., don't they? |
Two, so if this Santa was so bad, how did he get tricked so easily by a
bunch of villagers? Seems like the big bad children-murdering fear-monger isn’t
so smart. Why should we even be afraid of this guy anyway?
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| All that brawn and muscle and horns and he's a great big idiot who gets fooled by a stupid trick by some rustic village folk. Wow. |
Well, either way, it’s apparently Santa Claus, as foretold by a little
Finnish child who dresses like he should be riding a short bus. He tells his
best friend Jusso about this, but Jusso doesn’t believe him, probably because
Jusso is actually sane. Meanwhile, Pietari’s father and another guy from the
village find a mysterious naked old man unconscious and assume he’s one of the
miners from up on the mountain. They come to the conclusion that they’ve
captured Santa Claus. They’re about to kill him when Pietari spots them…
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| "Aw, man, daddy's killing someone in the garage again...I feel a lifetime's worth of psychiatry sessions coming from this..." |
And then he runs away to the cops! The father is so concerned that he
just stands there and waits around for, I dunno, the new world to rise up after
Armageddon I guess, before actually going after him at a very stately, relaxed
pace that is more like the walk of someone who just had too many Hot Wings at
TGI Fridays. Pietari ends up at Jusso’s house where he goes upstairs to find
his friend and instead finds…
Because this creepy voodoo doll placed in the bed of a small child
doesn’t denote kidnapping or ANY kind of wrongdoing, the adults, INCLUDING THE
FRIGGIN POLICE, just shrug it off as a prank. No way somebody could have snuck
into his room and taken him away against his will, right? HAS to be a stupid
prank! Hell, when I was his age, I put a creepy voodoo doll in my bed so I
could sneak out undetected ALL THE TIME! It’s just what kids do!
After that, the villagers go back to the creepy naked Santa they
kidnapped and start harassing him for information, shouting at him in several
different languages. When he doesn’t respond…they keep on shouting…they truly
are geniuses that way…and then they decide to ransom him to the big rich
corporate guys who wanted him in the first place. Because every good Christmas
movie was always missing a hostage ransom scene orchestrated by the good guys!
They go to get their money, of course bringing the little kid with them
because THAT’S the right thing to do. When they try to bargain with the rich
guy, they find out that DUN DUN DUN…they don’t really have Santa at all; just
one of his elves! Before they have a chance to ruminate on this huge plot
twist, they get attacked by…
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| The greatest Christmas image ever. |
Yup. Naked old white men running in the snow. I can’t even make this
shit up. But hey, at least this movie gave the geriatrics at the old folks’
home something to do on a rainy day. There is that. “Hey, want to come star in
our Christmas-ized version of The Thing with way less atmosphere and scares?” “Sounds
awesome!”
After the bourgeois white men are all dead, the main characters go into
this warehouse conveniently right next to the spot where they were all meeting,
and find out that the elves have been kidnapping children all throughout the
village, stuffing them in bags and are waiting to feed them to the giant horned
Santa trapped in the ice. They’re trying to defrost the ice with a bunch of
stolen ovens, heat generators and even hairdryers. Yes, hairdryers – the elves
have stolen hairdryers to try and
defrost a mountain-sized block of ice encasing their fallen leader. That’s…so
stupid I can’t even put it into words.
The little kid suddenly picks up a gun and starts commanding the adults
to gather explosives so they can destroy Santa. Yup…just out of nowhere, he suddenly becomes John McClane as a Finnish boy.
If the adults were the ones orchestrating this whole thing, sure, it’d be
retarded too, but when the 8 YEAR OLD BOY is the one leading them all? C’mon.
But it works out somehow, they save all the kids and Pietari is the new action
hero for Finland. Happy day!
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| The makers of the Die Hard series will be knocking on this kid's door any day now. |
But wait! There’s more! Apparently afterwards, they kidnap the elves
and train them to be Santa Clauses themselves, and ship them all around the
world, cooped up in wooden boxes no less, to make money. Gee, doesn’t that
remind you of another shameful chapter of human history?
Eh. Could just be a coincidence.
But yeah, that’s the end of this whole thing, and wasn’t it just
perfectly lame? The characters are all either dull or stupid, the plot is just
a rip off of The Thing, the humor isn’t that great and it’s just not that
impressive of a movie. The idea is interesting but the execution just isn’t
very stirring. And seriously, we never even see the Santa Claus in this movie!
The big monster that the whole movie builds up to, is never shown on screen!
What kind of bullshit is that? I guess I’ll just assume he looks like Bill
Goldberg.
Merry Christmas!
I think you missed most of the satire/allusions. The movie is a comedy told straight, and it makes fun of a lot of other movies, especially Spielberg's.
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