JACK FROST (FANTASY/COMEDY, 1998)Directed by Troy Miller
Starring Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Joseph Cross, Mark Addy, Taylor Handley
PG for mild language.
Naughty or Nice?: A Bit Naughty, But Mostly Just Dumb
Religious or Secular?: Secular
Cynical and Sentimental?: Deliriously Sentimental, But Not Sappy
Holiday Relations: Christmas is mostly incidental to the plot, but there are Frosty allusions
OVERALL: 1.5 out of 4
JACK FROST is one those magical little family films that is so very creepy and retarded in the most wonderful way possible.
It's the story of the titular dad (Michael Keaton), leading man of the about-to-make-it-big The Jack Frost Band (indeed, his actual name is "Jack Frost"), and his pitiful boy Charlie (Joseph Cross), who live in the fictional town of Medford, Colorado, a picturesque little town nestled in the snowy Rocky Mountains but often looks suspiciously like a sound stage. Jack is a pretty good dad, the sort who comes home in the middle of the night, then wakes his son to build a snowman outside and tries to stick a snow-phallus on it ("Nose? I thought you said hose!"). Unfortunately, Jack is also on the road a lot with his band, and sometimes puts his dreams of rock star glory ahead of watching his son's inept little league hockey team get their butts whooped. One Christmas Day, Jack has the opportunity to finally sign the record deal of his dreams, but halfway there on the mountain road, he changes his mind and realizes that Christmastime is family time. Regrettably, just following this revelation, Jack drives his car off a cliff and dies. One year later, Charlie is a mopey boy living with his widowed mother (Kelly Preston), and occasionally hanging out with his dead dad's old best mate, Mac (Mark Addy). Charlie's quit the hockey team, and no longer takes part in ridiculously violent playground snowball fights; in other words, his whole life is in disarray. But one night, Charlie builds a snowman, which he dresses in his dad's old hat and scarf (that's what people do with their dead dad things, duh), and then blows on his dad's "magic" harmonica. For whatever reason, Jack's spirit is dragged from the netherworld and awakens inside the snowman. Now, all Jack has to do is convince his son that it is indeed him that is possessing this snowman form, and then teach him his trademark hockey move, "The J-Shot," and get him to rejoin the team, so that Jack can finally make up for missing the game a year before.
JACK FROST is ridiculous. It's about a dead rock musican who possesses his kid's snowman so that he can finally go to his kid's hockey game. The film was mostly marketed on the point of the snowman effects, the result of which I'll allow the late-great Roger Ebert to elaborate on:
"The snowman gave me the creeps. Never have I disliked a movie character more. They say state-of-the-art special effects can create the illusion of anything on the screen, and now we have proof: It's possible for the Jim Henson folks and Industrial Light and Magic to put their heads together and come up with the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects, and I am not forgetting the Chucky doll or the desert intestine from "Star Wars." To see the snowman is to dislike the snowman. It doesn't look like a snowman, anyway. It looks like a cheap snowman suit. When it moves, it doesn't exactly glide--it walks, but without feet, like it's creeping on its torso. It has anorexic tree limbs for arms, which spin through 360 degrees when it's throwing snowballs. It has a big, wide mouth that moves as if masticating Gummi Bears. And it's this kid's dad."It's one of Ebert's most loathing reviews, and it's great: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jack-frost-1998.
Even better, it's just a terrible family movie character; the first thing he checks after realizing that he's now a snowman is to see if he still has a penis (he doesn't, and he's dismayed), and later, when he's hit by two snowballs in the snow-chest, forming snow-breasts, he plays with them for a moment before removing them. Nice. We also get the obligatory jokes about his "balls" and big butt, but I suppose I'd complain if those weren't there.
The best thing about the movie is Keaton, who seems gleefully aware of the movie's stupidity and exploits that fact to have fun. Charlie, on the other hand, is an excellent example of the terrible movie child who you hate and don't want a happy ending for, but he gets it anyway, which makes you hate him even more. He so smug and not intelligent by any stretch either. I hate him.
It's shamelessly sentimental, and the ending, which provides a GHOST-esque encore for Keaton's physical presence is so hilariously treacly that you just can't help but love it in a derisive way. I think this movie is aggressively dumb, but if I had children, I'd make them watch it on Christmas Eve every year. Now to wrap things up, here's a few of the best quotes from the movie:
Jack Frost: "You da man!"
Charlie: "You da man!"
Jack Frost: "No, I'm the Snowman!"
Charlie: "But Dad..."
Jack Frost: "But Dad? Did you just call me Butt-Dad? Ya know, that would make you Butt-Boy. Bye, Butt-Family!"
Jack Frost: "I am the Wizard of Blizzard! Now run you little mountain goats!"
Rory the Bully: "Snowdad is better than no dad."
No comments:
Post a Comment