The Christmas Chronicles is a new Netflix original most noticeable for starring Kurt Russell as Santa Clause. I don’t tend to watch too many Christmas movies but just hiring Russell to play Saint Nick was too much of a curiosity. Also, can’t decide how distressing it is that he’s old enough to play Santa now…

So the film stars two teen actors – a brother who is slipping onto the naughty list and a sister who is a True Believer – who stumble upon Santa going about his rounds on Christmas Eve. They sneak aboard his sleigh which causes chaos, the reindeer run away, the sack of toys falls out, and now the kids and Santa have to team up to save Christmas.

This is a charming little film that gives us a kind of rock ‘n roll Santa who loves muscle cars almost as much as he loves delivering presents. But he is NOT fat and is angry at the libelous depiction in marketing. What I like about Russell doing this shtick is that he doesn’t go full bad boy Santa; this is still a good, recognizable Santa. He just likes some of the fun things in life.

He also steals a stolen car, leads police on a high speed chase through downtown Chicago, and arguably breaks out of prison. The film has a winking “edge” to it and drops a few choice swear words, gives us unrepentant criminals, and just generally has a tone a shade (but only a shade) darker than most Christmas movies. It actually reminded me a lot of the tone (and Chicago setting of) Adventures in Babysitting. But it remains respectable and it remains a good-natured Christmas flick anyway. Nice balancing act.

So, yeah, I liked it. It didn’t exactly melt my grinch-like heart but I respected Kurt Russell’s performance and thought the kids were charming too. I’d recommend it. Not the best film out there but also a Netflix movie so what else you gonna watch on the service?

Score: 81