I’m in a continuous struggle with the cinematic complexities and nuances of Hot Frosty. On the one hand, it’s a big box of dumb… on the other hand, it’s inoffensive and sometimes it made me laugh. It’s the kind of stupid Christmas rom-com that deserves a cineaste’s sneer, but its also a bundle of frippery that doesn’t really earn any hate. And it definitely doesn’t rate this much analysis.
The flick is about one of those Hollywood Christmas small towns where Lacey Chabert runs a diner. One day she randomly places a red scarf on a realistic looking snowman and he comes to life… as a hot young dude who doesn’t know anything and yet is really good at fixing things (because that’s what hot guys do).
If a movie is as dumb as a box of rocks and features a character who is also dumb as a box of rocks, do two dumbs make a not dumb? Is this actual quantifiable mathematics? Is this movie possibly pretending to be dumb because that’s what dumb Christmas rom-coms do? I mean, I laughed at Hot Frosty’s off-handed comments about searching the house for vampires. Am I the dumb one here?
It was nice to see Lacey Chabert again… she hasn’t been in anything I can recall in years. I like that she’s grown into her adult face (and voice) since I saw her last in… Mean Girls? Looking at her IMDB, she’s been quite busy but not exactly in anything I’ve seen.
Hot Frosty himself is played by Dustin Milligan, a dude I’m not familiar with and for whom I’m skeptical. Certainly his physically unfair torso defies geometry so it fits the movie’s title. I wasn’t convinced of his facial hotness… sometimes I could see it, more often I didn’t. But, then again, I’m not the target market for hot frosty dudes. You ladies tell me otherwise, and I’ll believe it.
Not that it matters… he’s reasonably enjoyable playing a big dummy who decided to pull an Elf (less effectively but still contagiously). He brings most of the doofy comedy to the movie and I guess his rom-com-ness with Chabert was ok. I’m less convinced of the comic stylings of Craig Robinson as a sheriff on a quest, but they can’t all be winners.
Does a human woman get it on with an animated stud muffin of a snowman? I guess, technically. Should I debate and ponder the logic and thermodynamics of this scenario? Most certainly not. Should we get Pearl and her scarecrow on a double date with these two? Absolutely.
Hot Santa is hardly one of the best Christmas rom-coms but it worked well enough – and I chortled at some of the snowman-out-of-water jokes. I’ll give it a bit of Noel charity and bump it from a cynical score to a Christmas-y higher one.
Score: 75