Too Many Clauses

The Santa Clause

Director: John Pasquin

Cast: Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, David Krumholtz

Released: Novemer 11, 1994

The Santa Clause 2

Director: Michael Lembeck

Cast: Tim Allen, Elizabeth Mitchell, David Krumholtz, Spencer Breslin, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd

Released: November 1, 2002

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Director: Michael Lembeck

Cast: Tim Allen, Martin Short, Elizabeth Mitchell, Alan Arkin, Ann-Margaret, Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Eric Lloyd, Spencer Breslin

Released: November 3, 2006

Oh, boy. This is a Christmas trilogy that gets considerably worse with each movie. I saw that they were all on Netflix and watched all of them in a span of two days. I had only seen the first one, but it had been a very long time since I had revisited it. All I had remembered was that Tim Allen kills Santa Claus (accidentally, of course, as this IS a Disney movie) and becomes him. There are a lot of unanswered questions and things that don't make sense, but they just brush over all of these.

The movie begins on Christmas Eve where Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is spending the day with his six-year-old son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd). His ex-wife, Laura (Wendy Crewson) and her new psychiatrist husband, Neil (Judge Reinhold) drop him off. Scott is upset because apparently Neil has told Charlie that Santa isn't real, but Scott tells his son that he IS real and, just to humor his son, tells him he believes in him too. This movie would have made more sense if it had been Scott who told his son there was no Santa Claus. 

While there are no funny moments in the sequels (well, there are, but none of them made me laugh), there were some funny moments in the first movie. One of them is when Scott is reading his son "The Night Before Christmas" and when he sees Charlie is (seemingly) asleep, he yada-yadas through the last few pages. However, since it's Christmas Eve, of course Charlie is still awake. They both hear something on the roof and go outside to check it out. Scott sees a man dressed as Santa and yells at him. The man slips and falls off the roof with Charlie exclaiming, "You killed Santa!" Scott pulls out a business card from the man that says "Santa Claus North Pole" and there's a little riddle on the back telling the person who finds the card whoever puts on the suit will become Santa. There's also some very fine print on the border of the card that goes into more detail. Scott, like any sensible adult, is trying to make sense of it and just thinks it was some dude dressed up as Santa. I think he's more concerned that there's a dead guy on his front lawn than that it was actually Santa. However, he can't explain how a sleigh and eight reindeer (why does Rudolph always get the shaft?) and the body somehow seems to disappear.  He doesn't want to put on the Santa suit, but his son convinces him to do so and he becomes Santa Claus, delivering the rest of the presents. Apparently, it looked like the previous Santa was 99.9% done with delivering his gifts because Scott only goes to about three homes before the (scary CGI) reindeer take him and Charlie "home" to the North Pole.

None of the elves (who are all played by children, in fact, there's even a shot of a baby dressed in an elf costume at one point!) seem upset that the previous Santa had died. They welcome their new Santa with no questions. I thought for sure they were going to be upset that their Santa had died and wouldn't be accepting of the new guy, but nope that isn't the case. They just go on with business as usual. I had just assumed the Santa Claus who fell off the roof had been Santa for eternity, but we don't discover until the third movie that there have been thousands upon thousands of Santas throughout time. We know this because Santa Scott shows his ex-wife's daughter who she had with her new husband (the little girl refers to Scott as her uncle) a room filled with thousands of snow globes and tells her each one represents every Santa Claus that has ever been. Does this mean that being Santa Claus is like being a Vampire Slayer? When one dies, the next one takes its place? What if a Santa dies, but is revived? Does that mean there are two Santas? (Actually, that wouldn't be a bad idea...one could do the Northern hemisphere and the other could do the Southern. Why am I asking such stupid questions?) Also, why have there been so many damn Santas? No way Santa didn't exist back in the cave man day. Also, we know he has a long life span. We meet one of his elves who tells Santa Scott that she has been perfecting her hot cocoa recipe for twelve hundred years. There shouldn't have been thousands of Santa...unless the original was the only magical one who could live for thousands of years and when he did finally die, he passed on his powers to just mere mortals who only lived out the rest of their lives. But what happens if a woman puts on the suit? Or a child? I'm so confused. Why do I have so many stupid questions about this movie?

Anyhoo....Santa Scott (btw, notice Scott Calvin has the same initials as Santa Claus) and his son land at the North Pole and he meets Bernard (David Krumholtz), the Head Elf. He explains to him about the Santa Clause, showing him the fine print on the card. He also tells him that he's free to leave tomorrow to get his "affairs in order" and is due back at Thanksgiving to get ready for the holiday season. Now in the sequels, he lives at the North Pole year round, so I guess when they're making the transformation, they're allowed to go back to their real lives to make changes.

Scott wakes ups the next morning in his own bed and just thinks he had a crazy vivid dream. Okay, that does make sense, but shouldn't it send warning signals that his son is also talking about visiting the North Pole and his dad turning into Santa? It's pretty funny when Laura and Neil come to pick up Charlie the next morning who's blabbering on about this and they're just giving Scott a strange look.

Scott goes through some physical changes he can't do anything about on his first hiatus as Santa. For one thing, he gains a lot of weight. So much so that he can only fit into sweatpants and sweatshirts and even goes to an office meeting in a sweatsuit. Nobody believes him when he tells them he's all bloated because he got stung by a bee. And especially not after he orders a bunch of desserts when he's giving his lunch order. Supposedly in this universe, Santa loves his sweets. A LOT. When he goes to the doctor about his weight gain (among other changes), he tells the doctor that he's only been eating cookies and milk. Okay, real talk: If you visited billions of homes once a night (oh, and by the way, in case you really care, they explain how Santa is able to visit so many homes in one night by saying there's a space-time continuum) and ate all the cookies and milk the kids left out for you, would you want to eat cookies any other time of the year? No, I don't think so! I would think Santa would get so damn sick of all the sugar, he'd want to only eat vegetables the rest of the year! But, nope! According to this Santa lore, he loves the sweets! I like cookies too, but, ugh! Even Cookie Monster would get sick of all them cookies! Another physical change is that no matter how many times he keeps shaving, a beard keeps growing on his face and eventually turns into the snowy white  beard we all associate with Santa. There's even a scene where he has just shaven it, looks in the mirror and pats his face dry, and the beard automatically grows back. His doctor dismisses it as "a hormonal imbalance".  But even more concerning is that his doctor also dismisses the fact that when he listens to his heartbeat, he hears it thumping to the tune of Jingle Bells. Uh, you should have this man on the operating table, STAT!

Fed-Ex sends Scott a ton of boxes filled with the names of all the children in the world and whether they're on the naughty or nice list. While it's a funny visual gag because we see his house is just filled with all these boxes, from floor to ceiling, it just doesn't make sense. This is a world where Santa has magic so shouldn't it just be a magical scroll that has every name of all the children on it? (Also, wouldn't it be a pain in the ass to update that sucker every year?) And is Fed-Ex in on this?

The movie takes a bit of a weird, dark turn when Charlie's mom and stepdad are worried that he truly thinks his dad really is Santa Claus and want to take away his visitation rights. I had totally forgotten about that part. They also think Scott is intentionally changing his appearance so he does look like Santa. Someone made this great trailer of The Santa Clause as a horror/thriller and it's super creepy considering that they used footage and dialogue from the actual movie, a Disney family comedy! Now if they had made this movie, it would have been way more interesting! Click here to watch.

So clearly this is set in a universe where Santa does exist. I have no problems with movies like this, but if that is the case that he DOES exist, then why are people, like in this movie, so skeptical that he does exist? How do they explain the presents under the tree the next morning? Unless Santa skips the houses where he knows they don't believe in him because he knows the parents have the presents covered? Or do the parents just assume their spouse put the gifts under the tree while they slept? I am so confused by this. Also, over the course of the three movies, a lot of people find out about Santa, so they're not keeping him top secret or anything.

Scott seems to accept his duties as Santa without question and is fine taking on such a big responsibility. It's too bad there's not some way he can get out of this job he never asked for in the place...oh, wait, we'll get to that later! By the time next Christmas comes along, he does much better than last Christmas. There is a funny moment the first time he's Santa he tells a little girl he's lactose intolerant, hence why he doesn't drink the glass of milk she left out for him. The next Christmas she has soy milk for him because she remembered what he told her.

Laura and Neil realize that Charlie was telling the truth about his dad being Santa all along and give Scott (even though he is now Santa, he still goes by Scott throughout the movies...only the kids and elves seem to call him Santa) back his visitation rights. They now believe in Santa because Laura gets her Mystery Date game she always wanted and Neil gets the "weenie whistle" he always wanted when he was three, but never got, hence the reason he doesn't believe in Santa. A few things:

1. If there REALLY is a Santa, wouldn't he know what Laura and Neil wanted when they were kids? Duh.
2. Neil's parents couldn't splurge for a stupid "weenie whistle?" (BTW, if you don't know what that it, it's a whistle in the shape of a hotdog).
3. Isn't a whistle a choking hazard for a three year old? This one is especially small. That's probably why you didn't get it, Neil! Although, that doesn't explain why Laura never got her board game.
4. Who stops believing in Santa when they're three?
5. Who even remembers anything when they're three?

I did laugh at the end of the movie when Charlie says he wants to go into the "family business." Um, is he going to kill his dad so he can be Santa? Oh, one more thing. This movie came out during prime Home Improvement time so of course we get a scene of Tim Allen grunting "Ho, ho, ho" like he did on that show. No kid watching this movie today or in the future will get that at all. Also, in an early scene before he turns into Santa, we see a store in the background called something Timone. This is a cute little Easter egg (um, Christmas cookie?) because Timone is a character from The Lion King, another Disney movie from 1994 and it stars Allen's TV son, JTT!

Okay, it's time to move on to the second movie. The third one is probably the worst in the trilogy, but this one might be my least favorite. The main premise of this one is that Scott can't continue on being Santa unless he gets married because he needs a Mrs. Claus! Ugh! Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and this was a movie about a woman who couldn't keep her job unless she got married? Also, um, I don't remember the previous Santa being married because we never met his wife in the first movie! Unless, when you die as Santa, Mrs. Claus automatically dies as well!

Santa Scott goes back to wherever he was from in the United States for two reasons:
1) to find a wife
2) his son, Charlie, now in high school, is now on the naughty list because he's been spray painting around the school. And he's super surprised when Bernard tells him this (or maybe it was Spencer Breslin, who plays the next-in-line elf, who told him...I don't remember). Um, you're Santa Claus. You're the one making the naughty or nice lists! Shouldn't you know this? Especially your own kid?

There is an amusing scene where Scott's ex sets him up with one of her friends (Molly Shannon in a terrible blonde wig) who is obsessed with Christmas. She wears a sweatshirt with a huge print of Santa's face and shows him her Christmas charm bracelet. Nevertheless the date is a bust. While Scott is in "the real world", he begins to look like his old self and thus looses weight and gets rid of the awful beard so he no longer looks like a Santa doppleganger. This is probably only for him to attract a mate, because, let's be honest: Who would be attracted to Santa Claus?

Guess who he ends up falling for? The principal of Charlie's school, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell aka Juliette from Lost).  They bond over Christmas or something...IDK. I could really care less. Scott ends up telling her, after their first date that he's Santa Claus, but she doesn't believe him. Not until Charlie shows her the snow globe that makes her believe. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the damn snow globe. It's kind of an important thing in the movies. Get this: whenever Charlie wants to see his dad (since he lives so far away in the North Pole), all he has to do is shake the snow globe and his dad will appear. However, in the third movie we find out the snow globe is locked in a special room in Santa's workshop. So why is it there and not with Charlie? Did he give it back when he got older and didn't care about seeing his dad that much anymore? These movies make no sense.

While Scott is gone, he makes this really creepy clone of himself (played by Tim Allen with a weird plastic head) because they still need to have someone in charge of the elves since it's so close to Christmas and they need to continue making toys. Why didn't he just put Bernard in charge? All of these elves are really stupid because they believe he's the real Santa. He slowly becomes a dictator and it's a really weird B plot line and it's just best to forget about it.

Somehow Carol goes back to the North Pole with Santa Scott and, after, like a month of dating, he asks her to marry him and she's like, "Of course! Yes!" Excuse my langague, but what the f**k? Who decides to marry someone after only knowing them for a month? And who would uproot their whole entire life to move to a cold, remote location with the only company being a bunch of elves and a jolly fat man who eats sweets all day? No, thank you! I would much rather live on the Lost island! They are married right there on the spot and Scott automatically turns back into Santa. You know, I never really thought of this, but I was listening to a podcast and someone pointed out while Scott physically turns into Santa, Carol (haha, I almost typed Juliette) doesn't become a Mrs. Claus type: elderly, plump woman with gray hair and round glasses, but rather she stays young, thin, and blonde. So yes, they are married on Christmas Eve, exactly the deadline he needed to be hitched by, and hooray! Christmas is saved! Ugh!

In the third and (hopefully!) final movie, we learn there is an Escape Claus where, if in the event the person who assumes the role of Santa, does NOT want to be Santa, all he has to do is hold the super special Snow Globe and say "I wish I were never Santa" and everything goes back to the way it was. Gee, they conveniently left this out of the first movie! They never told Scott there was a way out of this. Of course, by this time, twelve years later, Scott loves being Santa and blah, blah, blah. He is now married to Carol and they are expecting a baby, and eww...I don't want to think of Santa procreating. Besides, it seems really unfair that Santa has his own child. You just know this kid is going to be the most spoiled kid in the world! He has every single toy right at his fingertips! What kind of bs is that?

In the second movie we were introduced to the Council of Legendary Figures (or whatever they were called) which includes Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, Mother Nature, and Father Time. (Hey! Where is the Hanukah Armadillo?) In this movie we are introduced to Jack Frost (Martin Short) who wants to take over Christmas and become Santa. I know "jack frost" is mentioned in The Christmas Song ("jack frost nipping at your nose"), but I don't think of it as a legendary holiday figure. Apparently he's the one who gives children their runny noses. He ends up tricking Santa into making him not be Santa anymore (and it takes awhile to get there) so he can take over the job. Scott is now back to his old self and we learn that he and his son are no longer close, his ex-wife divorced her new husband (yet their daughter was still born...I thought for sure in this timeline she wouldn't exist) and everything and everyone is so miserable. We also learn that Jack Frost as Santa Claus has made the North Pole into a theme park, charging everyone to come and visit. Scott tricks the Santa Frost into saying he wished he never became Santa and they go back in time to when Scott first became Santa. I thought for sure Scott was going to find a way to save the original Santa, the one who fell off the roof in the first movie, so he would continue on being Santa and Scott would remain himself and still maintain a good relationship with his son and ex-wife AND marry Carol, but live a nice, normal life in Wherever, USA. But no. He was destined to be Santa Claus.

There's also this stupid subplot where Carol's parents (played by Alan Arkin and Ann-Margaret) are coming to visit for her upcoming birth. They, of course, have no idea she's married to Santa Claus and think her husband works at a toy company in Canada. To trick them, they make signs all over saying they are in Canada and everyone says "Eh!" at the end of every sentence. Santa Scott brings the Sandman with him so he can make Carol's parents fall asleep while they're riding in the sled.

Yeah, these movies are terrible. Maybe I would have liked them better if they came out when I was a kid. The first one has its moments and is the most interesting so I would slightly recommend that one as a movie to watch around the holidays, but definitely skip its sequels!

Here We Come a Netflixin'

The Christmas Chronicles 2

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Darby Camp, Jahzir Bruno, Julian Dennison, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Tyrese Gibson, Darlene Love

Released on Netflix: November 25, 2020

It's December! That means it's time for reviews of Christmas movies, yay! Two years ago I reviewed The Christmas Chronicles and today I will be reviewing its sequel. If you had asked me, I would have told you the first one came out last year, but no, it came out two years ago. Where did the time go? I would have also told you that Chris Columbus directed that movie, but no, he was a producer. He did, however, direct this movie, and I did notice some nods to some of his other holiday fare.

Many of the same characters from the first movie come back for this one (Kurt Russell as Santa is an obvious one!) and there are also some new characters. We are reacquainted with Kate and Teddy Pierce, who went on the adventure with Santa in the first movie. Don't get too reacquainted with Teddy, though, because he's only in the beginning and the end. He has aged out and has been replaced by a younger, cuter kid. I had no idea how old Kate was in the first movie and still don't know how old she is. They do mention the events of the first movie took place two years ago so this does follow real time. If I had to guess, I would say Kate is in the 11-13 range, but if she's 13, that would mean she would've been 11 in the first movie and I can't see an 11-year-old still believing in Santa. Yes, I realize that in this universe, Santa IS real, but even before they knew that, she still believed in him. Teddy was about to tell her, but decided against it. I looked up to see how old Darby Camp, the actress who plays Kate, is and she is currently 13, so she was probably 11 or 12 when she filmed this. 

Kate and Teddy are in Cancun with their mother, Claire (played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley). They were all brought there on a holiday vacation by Claire's boyfriend, Bob (played by Tyrese Gibson...the name "Bob" does not suit him at all) and his son, Jack, who is the younger, cuter kid who will be joining Kate on the new adventure. I would estimate Jack's age to be between 7 and 9. Kate is not happy at all. She hates being on a sunny beach so close to Christmas and would rather be ice-skating or drinking cocoa or Christmas shopping. I'm with Kate. Christmases in warm weather climates just seem strange to me. While it doesn't always snow every Christmas where I live, I can always count on it to be cold. Christmas is the holiday where you sit around the fire wearing your favorite cozy sweater and sipping a mug of cider or hot cocoa. It just makes more sense in cold weather! Kate is also not happy because she still misses her dad, who had died as a firefighter only a few years ago. She thinks Bob is going to propose to her mom and she's not ready for that. I can kind of see where she's coming from because if your mom's boyfriend invited her, both her children, and his kid on a trip to Mexico during Christmas vacation, that does seem like he's in it for the long haul. We know Claire and Bob have been dating for ten months and have known each other before they started dating, but we don't know where they met. Work? A support group for widowers? As it turns out, Bob's wife also died. You'd think Kate and Jack would bond over having a dead parent, but no, doesn't really ever come up. 

Kate is so upset she makes a Christmas Wish to Santa. She decides she doesn't want the electric scooter (from going over my review of the first movie, I was reminded that in this universe, kids only get ONE present from Santa, so you better choose wisely!), but would rather "get out of this place." She's worried "it's gonna feel like Dad never existed" if her mom and Bob get married. She even threatens (to literally nobody) that she'll run away. The next day she'll get her opportunity to do so when Bob discovers some tickets "complimentary from the hotel". Teddy and some girl go snorkeling. I wasn't sure if this was his girlfriend he brought along on the trip or a girl he met there (I have reason to believe it's the latter), but all he talks about in this movie is going snorkeling with this girl. Claire and Bob get to spend the night at Tulum with a private tour of the Mayan ruins. Meanwhile, the two youngest kids will get to go to a "kids' club slumber party" complete with all the ice cream they can eat. As a kid, that would have been my worst nightmare. Not the all the ice cream you can eat part (though I'd probably eat too much and get super sick), but being in a foreign (quite literally in this case!) place with a bunch of hyper kids (you know they'd be all buzzed on sugar!). Honestly, Claire and Bob, if you wanted to have your own romantic trip to Tulum, why didn't you just go on this trip without your kids? 

I need to interject with a weird fashion choice that I believe that was missed by the wardrobe department. There's no way this could have been intentional. So when the group is all gathered saying their good-byes before they go their separate ways, I notice that Claire and Teddy are wearing VERY similar shirts. They're both blue and peach buttons-ups. The designs are different, but both have some kind of pattern, kind of like a Hawaiian shirt. I have a hard time believing a teen boy would wear a shirt so similar to his mother's. 

Kate sees this as a great opportunity to run away since the adults have conveniently been painted out of the picture for the time being. I love that Claire and Bob just leave Kate and Jack in the lobby of the hotel; they don't even go to the kids' club with them. You'd think they'd want to check out where they'll be leaving their children overnight. Also, what about Teddy? They're leaving him alone overnight with no supervision with some girl he met? Like I said, Claire and Bob, why didn't you just go on this trip alone? But I digress...Kate tells Jack to head to the room where the slumber party is being held (seriously, what are they doing at this "kids' club" besides eating ice cream? Well, I guess we're told there's a slime-making station) and tells him she needs to go to the bathroom and she'll meet him later. Earlier she had called the airport who had told her she could book a flight home there (um, she has a phone...couldn't she just do it on there? Not that it's an important part of the story), so she heads outside and hitches a ride on a golf cart that will take her to a shuttle to the airport. Sensing that she's up to something, Jack sees this and hops on the back of the tram. He makes himself known a little while later and while he and Kate are arguing, they get flung through a portal that leads them to the North Pole. 

Confused? Let me explain.

The Pierce kids aren't the first characters we see, no, the first scene is of a character we've never met before. In the South Pole we see some kind of cave/hideout with lots of "Get Out!" and "No Trespassing!" signs. (Dude, who's going to be trespassing in your South Pole hideaway?) We see a young man with an Australian accent (I guess technically it's a New Zealand accent because I looked up the actor and that's where he's from, but honestly, I can't tell the difference) who is glowering as he looks at a picture of Santa and Mrs. Claus, stating that they "ruined everything" and that they "were the first humans I ever trusted and the last." My goodness, laying it on a little thick there, aren't we? So I didn't catch this the first time, but he's in the picture with the Clauses' in elf form. Yes, this human person used to be an elf and is now a human and has somehow been wronged by Santa and the Mrs. (By the way what is Mrs. Claus's first name?) We don't know the story, but don't worry, we will. 

He needs a "ticket" to get to the North Pole and he believes the answer is Kate. An elf that switched allegiances (either that or maybe there are also elves in the South Pole) has brought him the knowledge of Kate, a friend of Santa's. Somehow, he finds out that Kate is in Cancun (must still have some of that elf magic) and he happens to overhear Kate on the beach when she's making her Christmas wish. He's the one who leaves the "complimentary tickets" and he's the one who's driving the golf cart, thus the reason they go through a portal because he has a device that he throws that opens the portal. I honestly don't understand why Kate and Jack just don't jump off the cart that's only going about ten mph. They see the portal way before they enter it, so just jump off! I know, I know, they need the to go through so there can be a movie. But they could have easily escaped, that's all I'm saying.

Once they're in the North Pole, Kate figures Santa must have heard her wish about wanting to escape and granted it. Since she and Jack came from Cancun, they are wearing t-shirts and shorts and soon find themselves victim to the cold. Luckily, Santa spots them and puts them in his sleigh. By this time they are both pretty blue and unconscious. All they need is a little hot chocolate to warm them up! That's exactly what Mrs. Claus (Goldie Hawn) gives them and they wake up and are back to their normal selves. 

Kate thanks Santa for granting her Christmas wish, but Santa tells her he hasn't given her the scooter yet, so she knows that she didn't get to the North Pole via Saint Nick. When Jack figures out where they are, he is in awe. He exclaims, "I must be dreaming!" Santa tells him, "You're not dreaming, Jack. You're in Santa's Village: the real one!" The Clauses give the kids a tour of Santa's Village and boy oh boy, it is a more magical place than Disney World. (They use REAL magic at Santa's Village!) It's too bad this place isn't open to the public because Santa would make a fortune! We learn that the village houses over a million elves and Santa tells the kids this fun fact: "If you combine Amazon, FedEx, the postal service, and UPS with every manufacturing company in the world, and they quadrupled their output for an entire year, you just might be getting close to what we can accomplish here in Santa's village in a single day." Ha. Okay, yeah, I'm impressed! 

If you add up all the shops on Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive, the Magnificent Mile, and the Champs-Elysées, you're still going to get a better shopping experience at the North Pole. There are over 300,000 shops! We get to see a few of them, including a candy cane factory, a toy shop, and the place where they make video games (Santa knows how to code games...of course he does!). When the kids learn that Mrs. Claus designed all the shops, they point out the center should be called Mrs. Claus's village. Again, does Mrs. Claus have a first name? Santa agrees that it might be time for a change since it's been called Santa's Village for over a thousand years, but he's pretty reluctant about changing it. 

One of my favorite aspects of the village was the Polaris Cinema where Elf was playing and the admission was free. They also see the Hall of Letters, which is the place where Kate found herself in the previous movie. Kate mentions she's been there and Jack wants to know why she never told him. Good question, Jack. Kate replies, "There's a lot of things I haven't told you." Um, if you had met Santa and been to the North Pole, wouldn't that be something you'd want to tell everyone you met, especially a fellow kid?

Mrs. Claus prepare "dinner" which is a tableful of sugary desserts. Despite there being cookies, candies, pie, cakes, and brownies on the table, she tells the kids that all the food is actually "super healthy", but it tastes and look like desserts. Look, I am all for that. I would love if you could eat a cheesecake that was healthy for you AND tasted like real cheesecake. However, even if all these desserts were good for you, ugh, I could not eat all that sugar for every meal. No, thank you. That's why they call it a treat. If kids could have dessert anytime they wanted, I don't think they would be as coveted as much as they are now. I was very confused as to why Kate was eating Halloween brownies - they had orange frosting on them; they totally screamed "Halloween", but Santa told her it was lima beans and carrots and that's when I noticed it had green specks too. Jack eats "broccoli" which was a white and green layer cake. That did look pretty good. 

Jack and Kate want to stay overnight because their parents won't return to the hotel until the next afternoon anyway. Mrs. Claus says how wonderful it will be to have children, if only for one night and she and Santa look wistfully at each other. This makes me wonder: did they want children, but could never have any? They did this as a plot in the second or third The Santa Clause movie and Santa having a kid always felt weird to me. First of all, he's super old (in this one, we learn he's 1700 years old, so if he did have children, they'd all be very old too (assuming they're still alive with Christmas magic). Well, we do learn that time stands still in the North Pole, so nobody ages, so I suppose if they did have a baby, the baby would remain a baby forever? That's super...weird. Also, Santa having a kid just seems...unfair to both the kid and Santa. The kid would resent Santa for paying more attention to all the other kids in the world (remember this...this theme will pop up later) and all the kids in the world would be jealous of Santa's kid because they would pretty much get everything for Christmas. 

Now would be a good time to explain why the human-who-used-to-be-an-elf needed Kate to help him with his plan. Where Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves live, it is protected under the shield of the Veil of Borealis, which keeps them hidden and protected from the outside world. The veil is created by light from the star of Bethlehem which is also connected to the Christmas star tree topper that sits atop the massive Christmas tree in the center of the Village. (I think I got that right?) Santa is the only one who knows how to get in and out of the veil safely; remember that scene in Finding Nemo where Nemo and Dory go through the jellyfish waters (when they should have been staying above them) and they're dodging all the jellyfish? Well, in this case, when Santa goes through the veil he has to dodge a lot of electrical currents or something. He's the only one who knows how to weave in and out of them and when he gets the kids in his sled, the human/elf hitches a ride on the back and that's how he finds his way there. 

When the kids are getting ready for bed in their adorable matching red and green plaid pajamas, Jack discovers a set of books titled "The Christmas Chronicles." Mrs. Claus offers to read them a bedtime story. She starts with the first one which is called "The Origin of Santa Claus." Even Santa Claus has an origin story! Here we get a lot of exposition that will tell us that back in the day, WAY back in the day of 312 AD, he was "a local hero and his legend spread" to the Forest Elves. We learn that elves are "an ancient species of very magical and wild creatures." It gets super dark, but never really explored when we are told that they "were hunted for their magical powers" and were "captured by humans to the brink of extinction." Yikes! Anyway, the story goes on to say that the elves knew about a man who would be "King of the Elves" and "lead them to safety." This, of course, was Santa Claus. As we are told by Mrs Claus, "He led the elves on a mystical journey to an unknown land, where Christmas would truly endure." In the story, there is one particular elf who comments how much he hates humans. His name is Belsnickel and he is the elf who turned into a human; yes, the very same one who needed Kate (and Jack) as bait to get to Santa. Why is an elf who hates human now a human, you ask? Well, luckily, we're about to get some backstory on Belsnickel! He was "a precocious and brilliant elf"  who was taught the "art of magical potion-making" by Mrs. Claus and "the art of invention" by Santa. Mrs. Claus makes a comment how she and Santa loved him "very, very much", but don't they love all their elves the same? I would assume the elves are almost like children to them. Why does Belsnick get special treatment? As we're going to soon find out, Belsnickers was a little sh*t. By the time he became a teen, (elves can become teens? I kinda assumed they were all kind of one age), things started to change: "The spirit of Christmas had grown around the world. Santa had less time for Belsnickel. He became resentful of Santa and more rebellious." Yep, see, there's no way Santa could have ever had children - if an ELF, who WORKS for Santa becomes resentful of him, can you imagine how his own child would feel?

The Elves live by the ELVES' Code which stands for Ego, Lying, Viciousness, Envy, Selfishness. I'm guessing this is a list of things that elves strive NOT to be! As Mrs. Claus tells the kids, "If an elf commits every single one of those, they become cursed." Well, guess who broke all five? I'll give you zero guesses because you don't need any. 

We get a few examples of what a little sh*t weasel Belsnot has turned into. He places a whoppee cushion on a chair in a room with a handful of other elves and when one unexpected elf sits on it, he makes a big scene, pointing and laughing at the elf, who is clearly embarrassed and humiliated. And it's not like a "Haha, Flouflou farted" ribbing in a friendly kind of way, no, he is maliciously laughing at and mocking him. F**k you, Belsneeze. We see him tip over a gum ball machine outside one of the 300,000 stores, so when one elf comes out of that store, he slips on the gum balls and drops his packages. While elves seem to have a high threshold for physical pain (they go through a lot in this movie, but always seem to be fine in the end), this elf could have seriously injured himself. Again, f**k you, Belsnoopy. The only actually funny prank he pulls is when he puts his image on cans of "Rik Cola", when they are usually reserved for images of Santa. (Much like the holiday Coke cans...hey, remember those commercials?)

When Santa asks him what he's doing, he replies, "I build all the best toys around here. It's about time I get some of the credit." Now he says this in English, and not in Elvish. While we sometimes hear the elves maybe say a few words in English, mostly they are talking in their native language, so is speaking quite fluently in English a sign of his intelligence? Also, if he hates humans so much, why is he speaking one of their languages? The last thing he does that sends him over the edge is when he commits vandalism by spray painting his name on the side of Santa's sleigh. When Santa asks him why he would do that, he replies, "Because you care more about children all over the world than you care about me." I mean, Santa can easily just get rid of the paint with a little bit of magic, so Belsnivel's acting out here is pretty weak and lame. Also, shut the f*ck up, Belsnoodle, like seriously. In case you can't tell, I really don't feel sorry for Belsnitch. He's a whiny-ass elf who needs constant attention and praise and can't stand not getting any of the glory when I'm sure the other 999,999 elves (remember, one million elves live in Santa's Village!) are just as accomplished at making toys as he is and they're actually decent elves who don't cause mischief and mayhem. I'd be like, "Bye, Belsnipper, don't let the door hit you on the way out". Well, after breaking the Elves' Code, "he transformed into the thing he despised the most, a human." To quote Nelson from The Simpsons, "HA, HA!" Belsnoozy is so ashamed of his new form that he runs away and never returns...until now. While Mrs. Claus is reading the kids a bedtime story, we see Belsnorkel looking things over in a sly way and says, "In a few hours, this entire village will be nothing but a distance memory." Geeze, he really hates Santa, doesn't he?

I did laugh when Mrs. Claus is done reading the book and claps her hand to turn out the lights. It's done with magic as you can tell from the sound and visual effects, but I love the nod to the Clap On/Clap Off lights. (I feel like my grandma had one of those, but I could be remembering that wrong. Maybe I'm thinking of the commercial...it was always an elderly woman who used those things). 

Once everyone is asleep, Belscooter can now hatch his plan. He has a pet yule cat named Jola who he tells to "take care of the reindeer" so they won't bother him while he gets the star. Oh, yeah, did I tell you that's his plan? To get the star tree topper since it powers the entire village. But first, I must interject with something that doesn't make sense. When Belsnap became a human, he went to live in the South Pole. I'm not sure how long he's been living there...maybe a couple years? Who knows. When we are first introduced to Jola (we meet him before we know he and Belsnail are chummy), Santa is chasing him because he keeps trying to take one of his reindeer as a snack. Obviously Jola lives in the North Pole. So why is he Belsnout's pet? I'm so confused. But Jola goes to the stable where Dasher seems to be the head reindeer and is the one who stands up to Jola, protecting the seven other reindeer, but also gets attacked by Jola. Because this is a children's movie, we only see shadows of Jola about to attack Dasher and when the humans find Dasher lying down in the stable (brought to their attention by an elf), there is no blood anywhere. I did like that when the Claus's (is it Claus's or Clauses'?; now I'm confusing myself even more!) are told, they are watching It's a Wonderful Life in Elvish. I'm not really sure why they would have that in that language, unless they have a magic TV that can dub movies in non-human languages. 

To cause havoc, Belsnipper drugs the elves with Elf Bane which turns them from sweet and friendly elves into mean and mischievous elves. It's very similar to when Mogwais (don't ask me what the plural of Mogwai is...) turn into Gremlins. And I'm sure that wasn't accidental since Chris Columbus wrote that movie. One elf is even tied up in lights before it breaks free, much like that poor dog. Also, there's a scene that is VERY similar to the one where the gremlins are in a bar just going crazy. In the movie, the scene involves elves dancing to "Who Let the Dogs Out?" 

So while Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the kids are fretting over Dasher, who is apparently dying (this movie goes to some dark places!), Belscooby nabs the star, but Santa catches him before he can make his getaway. When he finds out what happened to Dasher, he does look remorseful (I guess a sign that he can be redeemable). He says that Jola was only supposed to scare the reindeer so they would run off into the forest. The kids out the human elf as the guy that drove the shuttle that took them through the portal and Belsnow thanks Kate for helping him get back to Santa's Village, making though as this is all her fault. Belsnub's plan is to take the star back to the South Pole and start his own village, aptly named "Belsnickel's Village" (doesn't roll off the tongue like "Santa's Village") where he's going to gather his own elves and invent "really cool stuff" that "will make everyone forget that the North Pole and Santa Claus ever existed." But that's not the only reason he's taking the star. It will stop him from aging so he can have time to figure out a way to "break this awful curse." When Kate asks him what's so bad abut being human, he responds in a very teen human whiny way: "Humans suck! Elves rule! And I am tired of being a human." Yeah, that's some weak sauce. And YOU suck, Belsuckle. 

So he just wants to become an elf again and as Mrs. Claus tells him (and the audience), the only way for him to break the curse is to come home and embrace his family. Dude, you're right there. Just say you're sorry and I don't know if that means to literally hug his family or accept them the way they are, but just do whatever you need to do and you'll be a stupid elf again. This movie could end now, but we still have an hour and eight minutes to go! Belsnuff's response is "Bah humbug!" and Santa scolds him, "You watch your mouth, young elf!" I admit that got a chuckle out of me. 

Santa and Belsnickerdoodle get into a brouhaha over the star and end up breaking the veil, which makes everything go dark. Belsneedle ends up with the star and flies off with it in his homemade flying contraption. Santa exclaims, "Without the star, the North Pole, the village, Christmas itself, is doomed!" Kate asks, "Like, for this year?" and Mrs. Claus replies, "Like, forever." Gulp! 

It is decided that Santa and Kate will go to Turkey to get a new star, which can only be made by the Forest Elves while Mrs. Claus and Jack will stay behind to take care of Dasher and find a cure for the elves. The excuse they give for Kate joining Santa is that he doesn't think he'll be able to get his sleigh off the ground with only seven reindeer. So a pre-teen girl can hep with that? Really, Santa? It's a very contrived way to get Kate to go with him. When they do start flying away, there's an empty spot in the front where Dasher would have been. Wouldn't it be better to move one of the reindeer from the middle to the front so the missing spot is in the middle so at least the front and back are both loaded with reindeer? I'm no expert in physics, but this just makes more sense to me. 

So Santa and Kate get to Turkey, but they don't know that Belsnood has also hitched a ride on the bottom of the sleigh. They talk to the Forest Elves, a new star is made, Belsnapper tries to stop them, yada, yada, yada, they fly back to Santa's Village.

Meanwhile, back at the Village, Mrs. Claus has given Jack the task of finding an arctic flower that "only grows in one place" (which isn't exactly close to where they are). It is the only thing that will cure the elf bane and she needs to stay with Dasher. She gives him a map and some cookies that will help him: a gingerbread man cookie will explode when he throws it and a snowman cookie will give him courage if he eats it. There are two of each cookie on the platter, but he only takes one of each. I mean, why not stock up on more ammunition? There's also two Christmas tree cookies on the plate, but we don't find out if they have any special powers. Naturally, Jack is worried about frost bite, but Mrs. Claus tells him not to worry because she's "an expert at reattaching fingers and toes." You'd think a place brimming with magic, they'd have some kind of heating installation in their winter clothes (btw, Mrs. Claus "magically" changed the kids' resort clothes into winter garb). 

Jack has to climb a mountain to get to the antidote so he takes a bite of the snowman cookie to give him courage. Luckily he didn't bite the exploding cookie. He almost did, but then realized that was the wrong one. He does use the exploding gingerbread man cookie when he gets attacked by Jola and they both fall off the mountain. He throws the cookie at the yule cat who runs off and Jack has to climb the mountain again, but finally reaches the flower which he brings back to the stables. 

In order to distribute the antidote to the elves, he has to go to a certain spot in the village. The scene where he's fighting through the slew of elves who is making this very difficult for him is quite funny. Mrs. Claus has armed him with a Nerf crossbow and we see slow motion scenes of him shooting at the elves and running and taking cover like this is a war movie. At one point, when the elves are closing in on him, he grab a large lollipop and just smacks the crap out of them. Talk about elf abuse! I love that while the elves turn "bad", the movie at the Polaris theater has turned from Elf to Bad Santa. Personally, I think they should have gone with Gremlins as an inside joke, but they probably wanted to go for a joke that kids would have gotten since it literally says "Bad Santa". 

So Santa has dropped Kate off (literally) at the tree so she can reconnect the star to it, but that won't be without any problems. In the air, Santa and his reindeer are about to have a standoff with Belsniffles whose flying contraption is being pulled by a jackal and coyote hybrid called jackalotes. Santa tells him that it "doesn't exactly scream aerodynamic." We see them charging at each and Mrs. Claus throws a gingrbread man cookie that explodes, causing Santa, Belskittles, and all the animals to come crashing down to the ground. The gingerbread man's mouth turns into an "O" expression which got a laugh out of me. 

Kate has managed to restore the power of the star and the elves have turned back to their happy, helping, healthy elves selves. The movie is almost over, but we just need to close up Belstar's story. He and Santa share a moment when Santa shows him the first toy they built together. When Belstickle tells the Claus's he's always loved them, he turns back into an elf. All the other elves cheer and are happy, but I'm not sure why. When he WAS an elf, Belsnag was a massive jerk douche to them. I certainly wouldn't be welcoming him back with welcome arms. But, whatever.

There's a nice moment when the kids are saying good-bye to Mrs. Claus as they get in the sled with Santa so he can take them back to their resort in Cancun and she reveals to Jack that the snowman cookie he ate that supposedly had magical powers to give him courage was actually just a regular old cookie and that "the hero was always inside you." Aww. 

I did have to laugh when Belsnare jumped into Mrs. Claus's arm and you can tell Goldie Hawn was probably holding a cookie jar or something before they replaced it with the CGI elf. 

Kate and Jack are returned to the beach where they meet up with Teddy and he's like, "Oh, cool, you got to see Santa again" and they fill him in on what they did with one sentence each. The adults have returned from their getaway and they are hugged by their kids as though they've been gone for a thousand years and Kate surprises Bob when she seems to have accept his and her mother's relationship. The movie ends with the five of them outside on the beach singing "O Christmas Tree." (This is why I don't think the girl who was always going scuba diving with Teddy was his girlfriend; she wasn't a part of this singalong). While the mere mortals are singing on the beach, we see Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves are also singing the same song in Santa's Village. Of course Belsnagglepuss has to be the center of attention. I'm sorry, what did he do again to deserve the Best Elf of the Village title and Santa's and Mrs. Claus's favorite elf? Oh, right, he was a total asshat who whined about being a human when he was one so was rewarded by turning back into a whiny bratty elf. While they are singing this song, it struck me that I never knew the words to it. I could hum it, but I couldn't tell you the words besides the obvious "O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree..." I think there are different variations of it. I feel like this is a song you don't hear a lot on Christmas albums. I honestly couldn't tell you any artist who has covered it. They get a surprise from Santa when he magically makes the words "Merry Christmas" appear in the sky formed by the stars. I'm sure Claire and Bob though it was some sort of special effect the resort put on, but the kids know better. 

This was a cute movie and I can see it and its predecesser being holiday staples in peoples' homes. After all, they're both on Netflix, so it's pretty easy to come upon. 

HOWEVER, that being said, they could have gone a completely different route with this movie and I, personally, think it would have been more interesting. So there was a part I literally yada-yadaed over earlier in my review and I want to go back to that. It's when Santa and Kate now have their newly minted star and Belsnarl is ready to snatch it from them. He rams into their sleigh which makes the star fall and he throws a device at them which makes them enter a vortex and they find themselves flying above Logan International airport in Boston in the year 1990. Kate is from Boston, but she definitely wasn't around in 1990. I was confused by the year, but it soon becomes clear why it's that particular year. 

Their sled loses power and Santa tells Kate that is due to "the lowest Christmas spirit" that people have at airports during the holidays. Their plan is to make people happy at the airport which will power up their sled again and Kate needs to find batteries for the time twister device that made them enter the vortex. I would think this thing would be powered by magic that they would get from lifting peoples' Christmas spirits rather than batteries, but we do get an amusing scene of Kate buying batteries at a newsstand and the woman thinks she's using counterfeit money and notices the bill is from 2020 (I NEVER notice the year on paper money!) and says people "probably won't be using paper money in thirty years." I mean, she isn't totally wrong. 

All the flights have been cancelled due to bad weather so that's why everyone is in a bad mood. A woman goes to the ticket counter and demands, "I want a flight to Chicago right now." She totally reminded me of Kate McCallister from Home Alone when she's begging to get on a flight to Chicago to get to her son. It can't be coincidental the same city was used! 

Santa uses his magic to have the woman who's working the ticket counter to belt out, "Now wait a minute...!" When she sang those notes, I was like, is that holiday song legend Darlene Love who sang "All Alone on Christmas" from the Home Alone 2 soundtrack and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", the opening song from Gremlins, coincidently, both movies Columbus worked on as a director and writer, respectively? Obviously he loves Darlene Love. Oh, by the way, just this year, I learned that she was the original singer of "Baby Please Come Home". I honestly had no idea and never really gave it any thought. There are so many artists who have covered this song (it IS a great song) that I just figured the original just got lost in the shuffle. I was always aware of her version and knew it was one of the best versions of that song and now I know why! It's so good; no wonder so many artists cover it. It also makes SO much sense when she sings the line, "Do you remember sleigh riding in the snow; dancing all night to 'Baby Please Come Home'?" in "All Alone on Christmas?" (Another great song that sadly gets overlooked).

Anyway, Darlene Love can add another Christas song to her repertoire: "The Spirit of Christmas" which she sings with Kurt Russel. It's a catchy little ditty, but it doesn't hold a candle to her other Christmas songs. The song gets everybody in the airport dancing and singing and their Christmas spirits are lifted so much that all the flights are able to be boarded and everyone will be able to be home for Christmas. (I guess Christmas spirit also helps clear up bad weather!) 

So while all that is going on, Kate strikes up a conversation with a boy about her age who tells her he's flying to Miami to spend Christmas with his grandparents. Immediately I knew that was her dad; immediately. Later it is confirmed that her dad was 13 when she met him in 1990, so I wonder if she is supposed to be 13 too? :::shrug:: Because the kid doesn't give his name until she and Santa are about ready to leave, she doesn't realize who it is at first. Young Doug is absolutely adorable and if I were a pre-teen girl, I would have a crush on him and I was a little worried that Kate would get a crush on him and this would be a reverse Back to the Future, but this is a family movie, so I figured they wouldn't go there. When she does figure out it's her dad as a thirteen-year-old, she gives him a tearful hug goodby and thanks him. I do have to laugh because they want to make sure the young kids who are watching it know that he is her father as a kid. You would think when he tells her his name is Doug, that would be the obvious clue. But then Santa clarifies that his name is Doug Pierce and when Kate hugs him goodbye, she calls him "Dad" but quickly corrects herself. It just made me laugh that they wanted to make it very clear that this is her dad! 

But I think it would have been a more interesting movie if she had spent Christmas with her dad in 1990. Maybe his flight to Miami was cancelled (despite all that Christmas spirit), so she was invited to his house and also got to see her grandparents when they were around her mom's age. Maybe, just maybe, Kate could inspire young Doug to go into a different profession other than a firefighter. Not that I think 13-year-old Doug knew he wanted to be a firefighter, but maybe he and Kate make Christmas cookies and she inspires him to be a pastry chef (do pasty chefs even make cookies? IDK) or maybe they play with Lego bricks and she's impressed with his designs and tells him he should be an architect. I don't know, just something that inspires him so he has a profession that is't so dangerous, so when Kate returns to present her dad is still alive! (Poor Bob). I think they could have had a really cool idea for a movie, but instead they went with the Belsnuffleupagus plot line. Oh, well, at least I had fun making up different names for him and I hope you all got a kick out of that too.

Quartet of Christmas Movies

I've been watching some Christmas movies on Netflix, so I thought I would share my thoughts about them. Spoilers ahoy (if you really care that much!)

A Christmas Prince (2017) - If you have Netflix, you are probably familiar with this because they've been promoting it hardcore. It was okay, but nothing great. It stars Rose McIver as a journalist named Amber who is suppose to travel to the fictional country of Andovia to get a story on Prince Richard. When I heard "Andovia", I thought for sure they had stolen the country from The Princess Diaries, but I guess that's Genovia. They sound exactly alike except for the first syllable! The King has recently died and Prince Richard, his oldest son, is suppose to be taking the throne and the crown on his coronation, which is Christmas Eve. He has a reputation with the press for being a play boy and is never around to take questions from them. To worm herself into the Palace, Amber pretends to be the tutor for Princess Emily, the little sister of Richard. They were expecting a tutor from Minnesota, but thought she wouldn't be arriving until AFTER the New Year. Amber just tells them she's the tutor without having to show any proof of ID and they believe her. Lucky for her, they don't seem to know what a Minnesotan accent is suppose to sound like! At first Princess Emily is a little snot to Amber and doesn't like her, but that only lasts one scene and in the next scene they have become friends. Emily also has found out that Amber isn't really a tutor (I'm sure she figured out that really fast because it was obvious she had no idea what she was doing when she was trying to teach Emily calculus) and finds out she's a journalist. She makes a deal with Amber, saying she won't say who she really is as long as Amber writes "the truth" about her brother. Apparently, Prince Richard is very kind-hearted and generous, giving to charities and playing with the homeless children. I'm not sure why the press says he's a playboy if there's no evidence of him ever being one. As you can guess, Amber starts to fall for the Prince. Of course we can't have a movie without having a couple of villains. This includes Simon, the cousin of Richard and Emily who is second in line to the throne, and Sophia, Richard's ex, who was only dating him in hopes of becoming the Queen someday.

There is this scene that is totally stolen from Beauty and the Beast (animated or live action, take your pick) where Amber is horseback riding by herself (she's following the Prince) and gets thrown from the horse while in the woods. A wolf growls at her and comes towards her and all she can do is just sit against a tree. Guess who comes by and saves her? Yep, the Prince. He shoots his gun to scare away the wolf. I thought it was going to be revealed the wolf was a family pet and it was going to start licking her face and being all cute, but nope.

Amber happens to stumble across some documents that reveal Richard is actually adopted (but Emily is still their own child) and therefore he wouldn't be able to take the throne. She tells her newspaper co-workers/friends back home in New York and they tell her she has a great story, but she doesn't want to betray the Prince like that. Like a moron, she leaves the papers out in the open in her bedroom, so while she's gone, Sophia and Simon start snooping around in there cuz they know something is up with her. They find the papers and at Richard's coronation, just before it is asked if anyone has any objections to him being the King (does it really work that way?), Simon brings out the adoption papers and the Queen admits it's true. Richard cannot be King, thus making Simon the rightful owner of the crown and throne. He marries Sophia the next day, Christmas, and demands to be made the King right that moment.

Meanwhile, Richard is angry at Amber because it is revealed she found the papers. She's on her way back home and calls her dad at the airport who tells her something that makes her think of something. In a previous scene when the Royal Family was decorating the tree, the Queen tells her about an acorn ornament her husband loved and Amber thinks there is a clue inside of it. She is right and there is a message from the King before he died saying he wants his son, even though he was adopted, to inherit the throne. Amber makes it just in time right before Simon is knighted and Richard becomes the rightful King! Yay!

The end scene was so bad. Amber is now back in New York at her dad's diner. It's about ten minutes to midnight on New Year's and guess who happens to be in town? Yep, the Prince, er King. And he asks Amber to marry him, telling her, "There can't be a King without his Queen." And even though they only knew each other for a month, Amber says "yes." But then she tells him she can't leave her dad and he's like, "Bring him along too! We'll build a diner in Andovia." It is sooo ridiculous.


Get Santa (2014) - This was my favorite of the ones I'm reviewing. It's a cute family British movie about a young boy, Tom, and his dad, Steve, who are trying to get Santa out of prison. Steve has been in prison for the last couple of years because he was the getaway driver in a burglary, but, as his parole officer pointed out, he was not able to get away. It's the day before Christmas when Steve is released and he gets a call from Tom, telling him that Santa (Jim Broadbent) is in their garden shed and needs help finding his sled. It's the middle of the night when Steve gets this call, so of course he's very concerned that his son is alone with a man claiming he's Santa and tells him to get his mother, but Tom refuses to wake her up. Steve comes over and dismisses the man's claims saying he's the real Santa and tells him to leave.

Santa is arrested when he's trying to get his reindeer out of the animal pound. It was a big story in London that a few days earlier a bunch of reindeer were wandering around the city. The news reporter joked that if these were Santa's reindeer, then a lot of kids were going to be disappointed on Christmas Day. If she only knew! Santa being arrested makes the news and on their first day together since Steve's released from prison, Tom wants him to take him to see Santa. Although when his son told him that, he just assumed he wanted to see Santa at the mall, but, no, his son wants to go to prison (the same one where Steve was held) to visit the man from the night before. Santa, now dressed in prison garb, tells them he wants them to save Christmas and he needs them to find his reindeer, who can communicate and they'll know what to do. I think it's Dasher who's the head reindeer and will be able to help them. Steve is still not buying any of this. There is a funny moment where he calls the old man "Nick" and he tells him that he sometimes go by that name and how did he know that?

To humor his son, they drive around until they find the reindeer. They don't talk, but they start farting and Tom is convinced this is the way they communicate. He asks a question and they all start farting. Yeah, it's pretty juvenile, but it made me laugh. I don't know what it is about farting reindeer. This was also a reoccurring theme in The Santa Clause movies. They find Santa's sled and this is around the time Steve thinks that this actually COULD be the real Santa. He accidentally dumps out all the magic powder, but Santa tells him on the phone that he keeps a manual in his glove compartment (which is an oversized mitten, haha). There's a map to a tower that will help them. Meanwhile, Steve has already missed his parole meeting, has trespassed on the grounds where the reindeer were, and has knocked out a police officer (although it was the reindeer that did that), so the police are after him. While all this is going on, I'm thinking, Wouldn't it be kinda crazy if this were like The Game (don't read ahead if you don't want to be spoiled by that movie!), that David Fincher movie where all of this crazy stuff is set up to make Steve believe it's all real, but in reality, EVERYBODY is in on it? That would have been so cool! They need to make a Christmas themed The Game movie! But I knew that wasn't what was going on because a) this is a kid's movie, and b), the next scene completely demolished any notions of that because Steve and his son find a magical slide that takes them to the North Pole (aka Lapland). I don't think there's any way you could explain that! When they arrive, they meet Santa's elves who tells them they can't ride in the sleigh because if they go more than a thousand feet in the air, they'll explode! With only one reindeer (poor reindeer!) to fly the sleigh, the elves instruct Steve how to control it. It's pretty cool how they get started because they start on a huge platform with a giant slide and go down it to gain momentum. There's also a loop-de-loop which I don't understand, but it's all part of the fun and charm, I guess. They're on their way to prison to get Santa. There's a really funny moment where Santa, with the help of  Sully, a littler person (Warwick Davis) escapes and they find a hole that Sully had dug through. There's a poster of a woman in a bathing suit and it's ripped to reveal the hole ala The Shawshank Redemption. Very clever movie, very clever. Of course they are able to get Santa back to his sleigh and save Christmas. This is a very cute movie and I just happened to stumble across it because it was the first movie that popped up when I looked for Christmas movies!

The Christmas Project (2016) - This is a movie that you could tell wanted to be A Christmas Story because there a lot of moments that totally reminded me of that film, but misses the mark. It was a fine movie, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it or anything. It's about a group of four brothers, the Buckley's, who are bullied by the Hagbart kids. There's three girls and one boy and they're really only bullied by the boy, Finn. The two older sisters aren't very nice, but they don't beat anyone up or do any mean pranks like their brother and the little sister is pretty harmless.

Mrs. Buckley, who is pregnant with her fifth child (who, to her delight, will be a daughter), wants them to "Elf" the Hagbart family this year. To Elf someone is to leave gifts like candy and mittens on someone's porch, ring the bell, and then hide to watch their expressions. It's clear that the Hagbart family is poor and their mother left them a long time ago. I thought we were going to find out that the father is abusive, but that wasn't the case. He just works a lot so he's never home. In fact, even though we hear about him, we never see him in the movie. Whenever they Elf the Hagbart family, they see the happy expressions on their faces and it makes them feel good, but Finn keeps on being a bully to all of them, especially Matthew, the kid in his grade and the one narrating the story as an adult (another reason this reminded me of A Christmas Story). Finn is a pretty sh*tty kid. He beats up Matthew's older brother, he steals cookies from his younger brother, he pins Matthew's underwear to a map so the class sees it when the teacher pulls the map down and it says "Buckley's bloomers" and he steals and takes credit for the project Matthew made for the egg drop challenge (you know, when you build something to protect an egg when you drop it from a certain height. I never had to do it in school, but this seems to be in a lot of movies and TV shows). However, we're supposed to feel bad for Finn because he's poor and has no mother or something like that. Yeah, he and Matthew become friends at the end, or at least he stops tormenting Matthew all the time, but gimme a break! This kid was a little twerp and never got in trouble for what he did. Everyone (like the teacher and Mrs. Buckley) felt sorry for him.

That was the main storyline, but there were also little subplots such as the Buckleys' getting new neighbors and Matthew and his older brother falling for one of the daughters, Juniper, who looks like Blake Lively's not-as-pretty younger sister. Her older sister bakes them cookies and they are nasty because there's no sugar in them and very hard when they bite into them. It was a really weird scene because when Matthew's older brother was eating the cookie, the girl was standing really close to him, watching him intently as he eats it. Like, who does that? Later in the movie, Matthew tricks Finn by making cookies that have toothpaste in the middle so when Finn steals them and gives them to his teacher, she'll get mad at him. However, why didn't they use these gross cookies the older sister made? That's where I thought the movie was going with that, but nope. There were some little vignettes peppered in, like one where one of the brothers becomes attached to a chicken (they have chickens for some reason) and his dad accidentally kills it and serves it for dinner because he couldn't tell that one apart from the other ones. And there's an ongoing storyline about "the Christmas catalogue" and if it came in the mail yet and who has it.

It wasn't a terrible movie, but it was clear it was trying too hard to A Christmas Story.
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Christmas in the City (2013) - This had to have come from Lifetime or the Hallmark channel. It was a very paint by numbers Christmas movie. It's about a young single woman, Wendy, and her six-year-old daughter, Grace, who move to the city after her dad's candy store is going under foreclosure. It's about three weeks until Christmas, so she decides if she gets a job at a department store (where her friend from the city, Angie, works) then she can make enough money to send home to her mother so she can keep the store running. I thought the city in question was New York, but it was Los Angeles. I was wondering why there was no snow until I realized this. When you think of Christmas city settings, you think of New York or London or Chicago. You don't think of L.A.! But I'm guessing it was set there because it was filmed there, so therefore it was easiest to do that. The only person in this movie who I was familiar with was Ashanti (and even then, even though I know she's a singer, I couldn't tell you the name of any of her songs) who plays this really bitchy woman who has been brought on by the head of the department store to fix things so they can achieve higher sales. Nobody likes her because she's a real hard-ass and everyone calls her Cruella DeVil because she wears a lot of furs. Her ideas to fix the store is to get rid of all the Christmas-y stuff like the decorations, the piano, the carolers, even Santa! She then proceeds to put up more sexy decorations like posters of buff, shirtless guys wearing Santa hats and she has models in slinky dresses serving hors d'oeuvres on platters. This is a little weird, but whatever, sex sells, right? But what's really weird is that she puts the posters of shirtless buff guys and has shirtless buff male models walking around in the TOY department (the department where Wendy starts because that's where Angie works). WTF? No kid would care about that, unless they're trying to get the attention of the mothers? It's so weird. Everyone is mad at all these changes, but nobody will do anything to stop Ashanti (I don't remember her character's name), so they pretty much let her get away with making the toy department a male stripper show. Wendy falls for the son of the guy who is the head of the Department Store (whose name I've also forgotten) and of course, they fall in love. The little girl is pretty cute (and a good little ice skater, I'm guessing that's why she was cast because that's a little subplot of the movie), but she would whore her mother out to any single dude they came across. This includes the son of Department Store Guy and her bus driver. She would just tell the guy, "Isn't she prrrreeettttyyy?" Wendy's mother ends up selling the candy store, but guess what, Wendy's new boyfriend buys them out and wants to set up their own candy store at the department store where he wants Wendy to be the manager of, so she ends moving back to L.A. so she can live her happy life. Blah. And Ashanti was fired, in case you were wondering. But we all knew that was coming. Terrible movie, but kinda fun to watch because it was so bad. 

Fun Christmas Movie Game

I was listening to this podcast called You Hate Movies (No, I don't; I love movies! - (it's tagline is "The podcast where casual moviegoers, film lovers, and cinephiles argue about movies")) and they were playing a game with Christmas movies where they would save one movie, thus having to "kill" the other one and therefore it would no longer exist in our world. It was a lot of fun as there was a lot of disagreements and arguments amongst everyone on the podcast (about seven people). So I thought I would give my own answers for the choices that were given. Some of them were quite easy and some (one in particular!) were really difficult to choose between.

So here we go:

1. White Christmas or It's a Wonderful Life - I have never seen the former and it's been a VERY long time since I've seen the latter. I would save It's a Wonderful Life due to it's cultural impact...you see way more homages to that movie.

2. Love, Actually or Just Friends - I've never seen Just Friends (didn't even know it was a Christmas movie!) and I love Love, Actually, so that one is a no brainer. Plus Love, Actually just oozes Christmas. 

3. Elf or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - This one was the most difficult for me. Everyone on the podcast said this was a "clear" winner, but I don't think so! They all thought Christmas Vacation should have been saved even though the girl given the question chose Elf.  I love both of these movies so much...they're both in my top five favorite Christmas movies of all time. Both of these movies make me laugh. While Christmas Vacation is my favorite of the Griswold movies, I have to give it to Elf because I quote it so much and I remember seeing it theaters (twice!) and just laughing my head off. But I really do love both of those movies. It would make me sad to live in a world with no Griswold Christmas movie.

4. The Santa Clause or Jingle All the Way - It's been a really long time since I've seen The Santa Clause and I don't think I would particularly enjoy it if I saw it again and you all know how I wasn't that crazy about Jingle All the Way. That being said, I'm going to have to give it to Jingle only because of the Minneapolis setting and for Phil Hartman. But I wish I could get rid of both of these movies and save Elf AND Christmas Vacation!

5. Gremlins or Krampus - I haven't seen Gremlins in a very long time and I've never seen Krampus, but I have to give it to Gremlins just for the nostalgia alone. Plus it has that weird scene (SPOILER ALERT!) where the girl tells that story of how she found out Santa Claus wasn't real when her dad broke his neck going down the chimney trying to surprise his kids as Santa and he died. Oh. My. God! What the ?  That is Gremlins, right? 

6. Four Christmases or Fred Claus - I haven't seen either of these, but I think I would save Fred Claus only because it sounds like a more interesting movie with Vince Vaughn playing Santa's brother. (As opposed to Vince Vaughn playing Reese Witherspoon's husband). I feel like if I were given a choice to watch either of those movies, I would choose that one.

7. The Family Stone or Love the Coopers - I have never heard of Love the Coopers so I choose The Family Stone by default, a movie which I've only seen once and don't remember much about it. 

8. A Christmas Carol or The Polar Express (both from Robert Zemeckis)  - I have never seen Zemeckis's A Christmas Carol, but I have always been a fan of the book, The Polar Express, and the train ride to the North Pole was pretty amazing. Some of the CGI in The Polar Express doesn't quite hold up, but for the most part, I did enjoy it.

9. Scrooged or A Muppets Christmas Carol - Well, seeing in my review of Scrooged, I mentioned that my favorite version of A Christmas Carol is A Muppets Christmas Carol, then I think you know what my choice is! Plus, I absolutely love this song:

10. A Christmas Story or Home Alone - This is no contest...Home Alone easily wins this for me. (And it won the round on the podcast). I get that A Christmas Story is a classic, and there are lots of funny moments, but I remember seeing Home Alone in theaters and I made my mom buy the VHS (heh) so I could watch at it my 11th birthday party (which is in September, mind you, so it didn't make any sense to watch a Christmas movie then!) I have a lot of nostalgia for Home Alone while I didn't really even remember when I was first introduced to A Christmas Story (probably one Christmas when it was shown on TBS 24 hours in a row! Well, I don't know when they started doing that...actually I had probably seen it before Home Alone even existed, but I just don't remember!) Plus, Home Alone is way more quotable: "Look what you did, you little jerk!" is a personal favorite of mine. 

BHPD

Beverly Hills Cop

Director: Martin Brest

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff, Jonathan Banks

Released: December 5, 1984

Oscar nomination:

Best Original Screenplay - Daniel Petrie Jr. and Danilo Bach (lost to Robert Benton for Places in the Heart)

Beverly Hills Cop II

Director: Tony Scott

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Brigitte Nielsen, Dean Stockwell, Paul Reiser, Jurgen Prochnow

Released: May 20, 1987

Oscar nomination: 

Best Original Song - "Shakedown" by Harold Faltermeyer, Keith Forsey, and Bob Seger  (lost to ("I've Had) the Time of My Life" by Frank Previte, John DeNicola, and Donald Markowitz from Dirty Dancing)

Beverly Hills Cop III

Director: John Landis

Cast: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Hector Elizondo, Timothy Carhart, Stephen McHattie 

Released: May 25, 1994

Cue the synthesizers and other '80s electronic instruments because it's time to head to Beverly Hills with Axel Foley as I review the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy (soon to have a fourth!). I don't think any of these movies are particularly good, but they are fun to watch (well, the first two anyway!) and you can tell when Eddie Murphy improvises during a scene and those are some of the funniest scenes in the films. 

When watching the first movie, there were only five actors I was familiar with:

1. Eddie Murphy, obviously.

2. Judge Reinhold - I probably couldn't tell you anything he's been in unless I looked up his filmography, but I'm definitely familiar with his name. I do remember he was in The Sant Clause movies.

3. Bronson Pinchot - It's Balki from Perfect Strangers! 

4. Paul Reiser - he looks younger than his My Two Dads character, much younger than his Mad About You character, and way younger than his Stranger Things character! 

5. Jonathan Banks  - yes, Mike Ehrmantraut (from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul for those who may not know) is in this! Actually, I didn't recognize him at all and it was only when I was watching the credits that I realized he was in this.

Axel Foley (a very young (and skinny!) Eddie Murphy) is a cop who lives in Detroit. This little detail surprised me, as I assumed he lived in California since the movie is called Beverly Hills Cop. The movie opens with Axel going undercover in a sting operation and it ends up in a high speed car chase (set to The Pointer Sisters' "Neutron Dance"; what is a Neutron dance anyway?). He does this without any authorization and his boss, Inspector Todd, is livid. Before he gets chewed out by him, Axel's fellow cop, Jeffrey (played by a very young Paul Reiser) tries to warn him that he's about to get it and right before Inspector Todd comes into the locker room to yell at Axel, Jeffrey turns around and pretend to be interested in the lockers. At one point, he (stupidly) intervenes in the conversation and Todd snaps at him that this is none of his business. He turns back to the lockers and exclaims, "This is not my locker!" This will come back in the second movie which was a nice nod to this scene. 

Inspector Todd tells Axel that if he ever does anything like that again, he will be fired. 

When Axel returns home, he notices the door to his apartment is slightly ajar. If that happened to me, I would be freaked out! However, being a cop, Axel has a gun, so he takes it out and scopes out his apartment. Luckily, he doesn't have anything to worry about because it's just an old friend of his named Mikey (which I didn't get his name until way later so maybe I missed it when we first meet him) who's sitting in his kitchen, eating. Actually, he does have to worry about Mikey wasting his electrical bill because he has the refrigerator door propped open. I'm guessing the A/C must be broken and he's doing that to keep cool, but, dude,' c'mon! Everyone knows you don't leave the fridge door open longer than is necessary. 

We quickly find out that Mikey was in jail for breaking and entering, but he was released a year early and has already been out for six months where he's spent some time in California (Beverly Hill, I presume!). They haven't seen each other in two years. Mikey shows Axel a stack of "untraceable bearer bonds worth 10,000 Deutschmarks." Axel asks if he stole them, then quickly rescinds his questions, saying he doesn't even want to know. I have no idea how much that is worth in US dollars, but considering that Germany uses the Euro now I don't think this will be a great future investment! In fact, this will be a fatal investment for Mikey. I'm sorry, but this guy seems like a real dumbass. 

But before Mikey meets his demise, at least he will have a fun night out with Axel as they go out to drink beer and shoot some pool. We get some more exposition as Mikey tells Axel he was in Beverly Hills (aha! I was right!) as a security guard. He was hired by a mutual friend of theirs, a woman named Jenny Summers who's the manager of a super fancy art gallery. Later, we will find out that Jenny's boss hired him as a favor for her. I guess Jenny didn't tell her boss that he did time for stealing because who the hell would hire this guy? 

They're both drunk when they return to Axel's apartment and as he's trying to unlock his door, two guys ambush them from both sides, knocking Axel out. They roughhouse Mikey and slam him against the wall and grab the bag he's carrying with the bonds in it (I love how he's just conveniently carrying them around). Mikey clearly knows who they are and tells them he was going to bring them back (yeah, right!); that he only took a couple stacks and didn't think they would miss them. Oh, they missed them, alright! They shoot him in the head right in the middle of the hallway. One of the guys who kills him is played by Jonathan Banks, and like I mentioned, the first time I saw this, it didn't even register with me that was him, but when I watched it again to take notes and knew this time he was in it, I definitely saw him. He's younger (but still old, if that makes sense) and has a lot more hair, but you can tell by the eyes and the voice. 

Somebody must have called the police because the next thing you know they're at the apartment and Axel is outside talking to Inspector Todd. He's really lucky that they just didn't kill him too, but then I guess we wouldn't have a movie. Or it would have been a very different movie! Todd warns Axel not to get involved in this case so Axel asks if he can take some vacation time which he's granted, but Todd tells him if he finds out he's butting into the case, "it will be the longest vacation [he] ever heard of." 

Now we see palm trees so we know Axel is in Beverly Hills. You would think that since he lives in Detroit, he would fly out to California, right? Wrong! He drives all the way out there in his crappy car, a Chevy Nova. It's 2,300 miles from Detroit to Beverly Hills. Who would drive that distance when you can fly out there in about five hours? (Still a long flight, but much better than driving!) 

After he obtains a hotel room he clearly can't afford, he goes to the art gallery where Jenny works. Before he's reunited with her, he meets Serge (Bronson Pinchot) who works at the gallery. He has some Eastern European accent (perhaps he hails from the Greek isle of Mypos?) and calls Axel "Ack-swell". Serge is only in two scenes, but he leaves a memorable impression. He is hilarious; when he sees a fellow co-worker with too many buttons on his shirt left open, he tells him to button it up because it's not sexy (and I loved when Axel agrees with him); when he tells Axel how much a piece of art work went for, Axel says, "Get the f*** out of here!" (because it's a very high price for a very odd piece!), he replies, "No, I cannot!" which cracked me up. He also offers Axel a cup of espresso with "a twist of lemon", but Axel politely declines. 

Axel and Jenny (as we'll learn in a later scene) know each other because they grew up in the same neighborhood. I guess Mikey was also part of this friend group too? IDK. Axel has to break the news to her that Mikey is dead and this is when we find out that her boss, Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff), who is one of the top art dealers in the U.S., hired him as a favor to her and Mikey worked at the gallery warehouse. 

Axel shows up at Maitland's office building posed as a delivery man with flowers and tells the receptionist that "it's imperative" that Mr. Maitland get the flowers (why? they're just flowers!) and goes to deliver them himself even though she tells him that all deliveries are left on the desk. He barges into the office and gets to the point when he tells him he needs to ask him some questions about Michael Tandino and explains that he was in Detroit and someone killed him. Maitland's exclamation of "Oh my God! That's terrible!" isn't convincing at all. He confirms that Mikey did work for him and when Axel still probes for information, he tells him that the authorities in Detroit should look into this and that he needs to get back to work. This must be the cue for his six guards to grab him and throw him out the window. A bit excessive, especially with people in the lobby witnessing all of this. One guard leading him out the front door would have sufficed. 

The cops come to take him to the police department as he's been charged with having a weapon (they find a gun on him) and disturbing the peace. He's pretty outraged about the latter since he was thrown out a window! After spending some time in a cell (with a pay phone which he makes a joke about wanting to order a pizza; yes the pay phone is in the actual cell), they let him out. On the outside, the Beverly Hills Police Department is a very ornate building and on the inside, it's very high-tech (especially for 1984!). 

He's introduced to sergeants John Taggart (John Ashton) and Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) who question him why he didn't identify himself as a police officer when he was arrested and Axel replies he was just minding his own business, but Taggart informs him that six witnesses saw him come in and tear up the place, then jump out the window. Let me guess: those six "witnesses" were the six security/body guards. Taggart and Axel don't get off on the right foot as the Beverly Hills cop tells Axel he's more likely to believe an established businessman than some "foul mouthed jerk from out of town." Axel answers withs a foul-mouthed response. They get into a squabble and Taggart punches him in the gut. From his office, Taggart's and Rosewood's boss, Lieutenant Bogomil (Ronny Cox,) sees this and after having a word with Taggart, he (Taggart) apologizes to Axel. Bogomil introduces himself to Axel and asks him if he would like to press charges against Taggart, but he says where he comes from, police officers don't do that to other police officers. Bogomil asks why he didn't inform them why he was in town and he tells them he's on vacation. When asked why he was in Maitland's office, Axel says he had to use the bathroom and thought that would be a good place. I don't know, that sounds kind of like a weak excuse. If you're walking down a street, are you going to go into an office building to use the bathroom? I mean, maybe, but I'd feel like you're more likely to use either a public bathroom or one at a restaurant or a fast food place. Bogomil asks if he always takes his gun on vacation and Axel replies that he's never been on vacation before, but in Detroit "cops are required to carry a firearm at all times." Bogomil informs him he had just been talking on the phone with Inspector Todd and that he's supposed to give him the message that if he's investigating the Tandino murder, then he shouldn't bother coming back to Detroit. Axel stills insists he's only in Beverly Hills on vacation. 

This is totally random and has nothing to do with the movie, but the name "Bogomil" reminded me of something and it finally dawned on me that it sounds a lot like Gargamel, you know, as in the villain from The Smurfs. 

Jenny pays for Axel's bail and takes him back to his hotel. During the drive, Axel notices the cops are following them and they park on the opposite side of the street of the hotel. In his room, Axel orders room service (the bay shrimp salad sandwich and the cold poached salmon in dill sauce) and instructs them to take it to the car with Taggart and Rosewood. This is all to distract them as Axel sneaks in behind their car and puts a couple of bananas in their tail pipe so the car stalls when they try to follow Axel and Jenny who drive to Maitland's warehouse where Axel finds a crate full of coffee grounds. They have to hide from some guys coming in with a box, but from where he's hiding, he's able to see that it's full of the bearer bonds that Mikey had. They follow them to what Jenny tells Axel is a "bonded warehouse", where they "hold foreign shipments until they clear customs." Axel tells a reluctant Jenny to take the car (it's her car they took, btw) and go home because he wants to check out the place. I know he doesn't want Jenny to be in harm's way if things go bad, but my first thought was how is he going to get back to his hotel? 

He walks inside, not trying to be sneaky, and when a security officer spots him, Axel smiles at him and asks how he's doing, then asks the man if he can get his supervisor and flashes his badge. The guy gets the supervisor and Axel introduces himself as "Inspector Rafferty, United States Custom Service" and asks him if all this stuff has passed through customs and the guy tells him this is "the bonded area." Axel wants him to answer a question for him: "How can a black man, dressed like me (he's wearing jeans, t-shirt, and unzipped hoodie), just march into your warehouse, walk into the bonded area and start poking around without anyone asking me any questions whatsoever?" It cracked me up when the supervisor replies "I don't know" and he says that's the answer he was looking for. He takes their ID badges from them and tells them somebody's gonna lose their job over this. He informs them he does "security checks all over the nation" and this one has the worst security in the nation right behind Cleveland. I'm sure back in 1984, the people of Cleveland watching this in the theaters had a big chuckle over this line. He tells them they're going to check the background of each and every crate in the section, starting with the one he's already picked out that he knows belongs to Maitland.  

It's amazing how they just go along with this and don't even ask to see his credentials, but I guess things were different back in the '80s. Or maybe it's just for the convenience of the plot and people really weren't that dumb back then. 

Meanwhile, Bogomil is furious about the banana incident and orders that Taggart and Rosewood wait for Axel to return to the hotel. We get a funny scene of them in the car where Rosewood shares the information from the magazine article he's reading: "By the time the average American is 50, he's got five pounds of undigested red meat in his bowels." Taggart asks him why he thinks he would want to hear this (my thoughts exactly!) and Rosewood replies, "You eat a lot of red meat." That "fact" (if indeed it is true; I was too scared to fact check it on the Internet for fear of what I might find!) is so gross! Kinda makes me glad I don't eat much red meat (I may have 2-3 steaks a year, if that!).

After he gets the info he needs, Axel returns to the hotel and sees the cop in their car and hops in the backseat (guess they don't keep their doors locked!). They're still a bit salty with Axel (especially Taggart) because his banana stunt docked them two days' pay. That sucks for them since it really wasn't their fault. Axel apologizes and says they should all be working together since they're cops and suggests they "all go get something to drink and make up and be friends" 

They end up at a strip club which will be a staple of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. Axel shows them the coffee grounds, but they don't know what they mean. That's quickly forgotten when Axel looks over and sees two shady guys enter, both wearing long black leather coats. One of them stays by the bar and the other walks towards the back, leaning against the wall. Axel points out the guy near the wall to Taggart and asks him if he thinks it's odd he's wearing a coat in June. He points out the other guy and tells him something's about to go down and asks him to cover the guy against the wall. He walks towards the guy at the bar and shouts "Phillip!" and pretends to know him as he loudly yells and makes a racket. The guy tells him to get out of his way and stops the music (which, thank God cuz that "Nasty Girl" song was awful!), then takes out his gun and the other guy does the same. Axel has his hands up but is still acting like he knows the guy. The guy comes closer to him and Axel grabs his gun and whacks him with it; meanwhile Taggart takes out his gun and points it at the other guy. They arrest the two guys and everyone claps as Taggart apologizes for the disturbance. I guess these two guys were planning on robbing the place. When I first watched this, I thought these guys were connected to Maitland, but nope, just two random guys whose plot was foiled. 

When they return to the police department, Bogomil is livid and wants to know what they were doing at a strip club out of their jurisdiction while they were on duty. Axel cuts in to tell him they were there because the other two were following him and that's where he went. They waited outside while he was inside and the only reason they went inside was because "they saw two suspicious-looking gentlemen with bulges in their jackets going into the place." He had no idea what was going on, but Taggart and Rosewood "were able too stop them." It's a very good, believable story, but when Bogomil asks the two sergeants if that's what really happened, Taggart, who apparently cannot lie, tells him no and tells him the true story and that it was Foley who saw the suspects and that he's the one who deserves credit for the arrests. Bogomil tells Taggart and Rosewood they're off the case and has two other cops keep an eye on Foley. 

The next morning, Axel orders coffee and doughnuts from room service to be delivered to the new set of cops and he sneaks away in his car, but they're on to him and follow him to Victor Maitland's house. During this scene, you can see a DeLorean parked on the curb. Besides being useful for a time machine, the DeLorean has to be one of the most impractical cars ever made. You can only parallel park because of those doors and who wants to parallel park? But the sight of it made me laugh because of course some rich dude (because you know it's a guy) in Beverly Hills is going to own a DeLorean in the '80s. While they're busy chatting, they see a car leave the house and Axel follows it and they follow Axel, but he's able to lose them. 

 

Axel follows him to a fancy, members-only restaurant and when he goes in, he acts very flamboyant and tells the maitre d' he's looking for Victor Maitland and the man replies if he tells him the message, he can relay it to Mr. Maitland. Axel gives him his message: "Tell Victor that Ramon, the fella he met about a week ago, went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have herpes simplex ten. And I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off." Not surprisingly, the maitre d' tells Axel he better tell Victor himself. Yeah, I don't blame him, that's not the kind of information you want to be delivering as the middleman, but I would be a little suspicious if I were the restaurant employee because I'd be thinking, this is not the time or place to be relaying this news. 

Victor is seated with Zach (that's young Mike Ehrmantraut...lol, now I'm picturing him saying "Axel" in the same way he says "Walter"....you know what I mean if you've seen Breaking Bad!) and the henchman gets up and tells Axel to get out out and they start slapping each other, then Axel grabs him and throws him into the nearby buffet table that's full of fruit and sliced strawberries, lemons, kiwis, bananas, and watermelon go flying everywhere. If I were one of the prep cooks who had spent all morning cutting all that fruit, I would be pissed! The other diners around them are just staring at them, but besides that, there's really no reaction. 

Axel tells Victor that he knows he's into shady stuff and is pretty certain that he had Mikey killed. Vitor replies that he has no idea who he's dealing with and tells him to go back to Detroit. At that point, the police come to take Axel away, so apparently somebody must have called them. 

Back at the police headquarters, Bogomil asks Axel why he keeps harassing Maitland and he tells him about Mikey and his suspicions of Maitland having him killed and adds, "I can't prove that right now, but when I do, you'll be the first to know." He also tells him about the bearer bonds and Bogomil doesn't think that proves anything. Axel says that Maitland is "not an investor, he's a smuggler" and that the crate that he saw didn't pass through Customs, but rather "Maitland is paying someone so his guys can get his shipments out of Customs before they get inspected" and when his guys get their hands on it, "they take the drugs or the bonds out of the crate and send it back before Customs even knows what's going on." When asked, Axel confirms he witnessed all that, except he didn't see any drugs, but he did see coffee grounds which drugs are sometimes packed in because the scent throws off the dogs. By-the-books Bogomil says they don't have a search warrant to inspect the warehouse and tells Taggart to start checking this out. Axel points out that if they start snooping around, Maitland will just close down and move his shipments somewhere else. 

However, Police Chief Hubbard want Axel to be escorted out of city limits because he's had enough of his shenanigans and Rosewood is ordered to drive him out of Beverly Hills. In the car, Axel tells him that Maitland is expecting another shipment in today and wants Billy to drive him to the art gallery so she can let them in the warehouse. Rosewood asks how can he be sure if the shipment will contain drugs and Axel replies that he's "got a hunch". It doesn't take much for him to convince Billy to take the detour. 

At the gallery, we get another humorous scene with Serge when Axel asks him to get Rosewood an espresso. He asks him if he wants a lemon twist and Billy replies sure, if it's no bother, and Serge replies, "No, don't be stupid." Jenny tells Axel that Maitland had come by earlier that day to ask about Axel and wanted to know where Foley was staying because he had "some helpful information" but she claimed she didn't know. She want go go to the warehouse with them, but Axel says it's too dangerous and adds that he doesn't have time to argue. Jenny replies, "Let me get my keys and we'll argue on the way" which is a line that made me laugh.

They drive to the warehouse and Axel tells Billy to stay in the car and observe. He can't go in because he's a cop and if he goes in "without probable cause, they'll call it an illegal search." He asks Jenny if there's any chance she can give him the key so he can go in by himself, but she says "no chance" and goes in with him. They check out the crate and he finds one from overseas that hasn't passed through Customs yet and opens it with a crowbar. Inside are coffee grounds and under those are plastic bags of a white powder substance which I'm sure isn't sugar! Axel is sure too when he takes his pinkie to taste it. Uh...pretty sure cops aren't allowed to do that! At that moment, two guys show up and one points a gun at Axel's head. In the car, Rosewood sees Maitland, Zach, and some other goons show up and go inside. Maitland tells his men to take Jenny to the car. Everyone but the first two men who were already there get in the car and drive off. Rosewood goes in and hears Axel coughing as he's being hit in the stomach by one of the men. He shoots at one guy and Axel is able to get free and take a swing at the other guy. They are able to get out and run to the car where Rosewood gets on the radio and tells dispatch to have Taggart check out the warehouse and act on whatever he finds. Taggart has other plans and tells the two cops who were assigned to follow Axel the second time to check out the warehouse and he drives to Maitland's house (because he knows that's where Axel and Billy are headed) and when he arrives there, he sees the two cops breaking into the back gate. After they explain to them Jenny has been kidnapped and she's in the house (I'm not really sure how they knew Maitland took her to his house; I guess it was just a lucky guess or I missed something), Taggart tells them they need a search warrant and they can get it in twenty minutes. Axel replies they may not have that much time and he's going in, regardless, and Rosewood says he's going in too. Taggart tells Billy that if he's lucky, the worst thing that will happen to him is that he'll just get fired. He decides that he's going in too and goes to get his guns from the trunk. Inside, two security guards see that there are people in the backyard with guns and they alert other men who work for Maitland and they come out with guns to check what's going on. 

Axel sneaks up the stairs that leads to the back of the house while Taggart and Rosewood go around a large stone wall. They try to climb it, but it's too high. There's a hilarious moment where Taggart gets on Rosewood's shoulders after Billy gives him a boost, but Billy can't keep his balance and he's stumbling and they fall. Eventually, they are able to get over. You can tell it's a different wall, because from their side of the fence, it's a solid white wall, but when you're seeing them from Axel's point of view, it's not solid and there are decorative slabs. 

There's lot of gun firing. A few bad guys are shot, but mostly the decorative gardening vases and statues are getting the brunt of it. This is the most gaudy pool area I've ever seen. There's huge statues everywhere. At one point, Rosewood stands up with his badge and yells, "Police! You're all under arrest!" but they don't care and continue to shoot at him so he has to dive for cover. They cover Axel as he makes his way into the house. There's no way the interior of this house is the same one they use for the outside. For a Beverly Hills mansion of an art collector, the rooms just feel small and uninspiring. He kills Zach after he's being fired at, then Maitland shows up and starts shooting at Axel. 

Meanwhile, Bogomil finds out that they're at Maitland's residence and he and many other cops show up a few minutes later. 

Back in the house, Maitland has grabbed Jenny with a gun to her head, but then Bogomil pops in and yells "Freeze!" and Jenny elbows a surprised Maitland and is able to get away and both Axel and Bogomil shoot him dead. This time, when Billy yells, "Police! You're all under arrest!", they put their weapons down and their hands up because many police officers are swarming the area. Rosewood's smug reaction is pretty funny.

Police Chief Hubbard shows up and wants to know what's going on, excuse me, he wants to know "what the hell's going on?" He spots Axel and demand to know why he isn't in custody. Bogomil tells him he can explain everything and makes up a story that Jenny "accidentally discovered large quantities of a substance she suspected was cocaine in the art gallery's warehouse" and she told Axel who was "cooperating at the time in a joint Beverly Hills-Detroit investigation of narcotics trafficking." He and Rosewood responded to her report and "discovered approximately 80 kilos of cocaine". Rosewood called for backup and he dispatched their officers to this location which Taggart was first to arrive and "having probable cause to believe a felony was in progress" they "proceeded to enter the grounds" and they shot several suspects to defend themselves. Hubbard wants to hear from Taggart if he can confirm that story since it was established earlier that he has a penchant for telling the truth, but Taggart says that's what happened. 

After Hubbard leaves, Axel asks Bogomil if he could call Inspector Todd and straighten things out for him and he tells him he'll do that in the morning. I really thought he was going to offer Axel a job and that's how he became a Beverly Hills cop, hence the title! Axel checks out of his hotel room and he's lucky that the BHPD paid for it! 

That's the end of the first movie, now on to Beverly Hills Cop II which follows a similar formula to the first movie, but is a bit more convoluted. The movie is directed by Tony Scott so there are more actions scenes with sh*t blowing up and you can tell they had a bit more money for production. 

It's two years later and Axel is still living in Detroit as a cop and is working undercover on an assignment with fake credit cards. We learn that he's kept in touch with Bogomil, Taggart, and Rosewood; he even has to cancel a fishing trip he had planned with Bogomil. Okay, I can buy that maybe he sends Christmas cards or talks to them on the phone every few months, but visits? Yeah, that seems a bit much. He even seems to be very friendly with Bogomil's adult daughter, Jan, who we meet in this movie. They obviously just added her as a character they needed because it was never mentioned before that he had a daughter. 

In the first movie, Axel was brought to Beverly Hills because of the murder of a friend; this time he comes to Beverly Hills because Bogomil was shot and Axel knew he had been working on a case and thinks it may have to do with him being shot. 

Because of the way a case was handled, Lutz, the new police chief, has suspended Bogomil; and Taggart and Rosewood have been demoted to traffic duty. At one point, he calls Rosewood "Roseweed" which made me giggle. On his way home, Bogomil is followed by a tall, attractive woman with dark hair and sunglasses, but she must have gotten in front of him because he sees her parked on the curb in a residential area (I'm assuming his). Her hood is open as though she has car trouble and he pulls over to offer help. As he's checking out the engine, another car pulls up and she hands him a piece of paper with "B" written on it and asks him what he thinks of it and the guy driving by shoots at him. He grabs at her and pulls off the wig she's wearing to reveal she's a blonde and she shoots him in the chest. I gasped, thinking for sure he was dead, but he actually makes it out okay by the end of the movie, so he must have been wearing a bullet proof vest. 

The tall blonde woman that shot him is the same tall blonde woman we saw rob a fancy jewelry store at the beginning of the movie. Well she didn't do any of the stealing; the masked men who were with her did all that while she just kept shouting how much time they had until the police arrived ("Two minutes! One thirty!"). On her way out, she left a pink carnation and a card with the letter "A" on the back of the manager. The man is alive, but he was ordered to "eat the floor". It cracked me up seeing this nicely dressed, polished woman use such boorish language. Yes, I realize she's involved in a heist, but its not like she's really doing any of the dirty work! The "A" stands for the name of the jewelry store (and presumably the last name of the owner), Adriano. With the "B" card found on Bogomil, the two crimes are connected and are quickly dubbed the Alphabet Crimes. It was really lucky that Bogomil wasn't named, like, Zogomil in the first movie or else they'd have to think of something else! 

Axel finds out about the shooting of Bogomil on TV. Why would this be on the news in Detroit? Seems like that would be more local news, not national news. But I guess they need to have him find out, although I'm sure Taggart or Rosewood or Jan would have called him to tell him. Yeah, that would make way more sense. This is when we find out that he's "going to be okay" and Rosewood tells him about "the Alphabet Bandit" and that he and Taggart aren't on the case. 

Before Axel leaves for Beverly Hills, he asks Jeffrey (that's Paul Reiser's character, remember) to have him tell Inspector Todd (that's his boss, remember) that he's pursing his credit card bust. When he arrives in the ritzy town, we're shown a bunch of Beverly Hills cliches like expensive cars and Rodeo Drive. The one that stuck out to me in particular was an attractive woman walking her little dog down the sidewalk. Not only is she wearing heels (ridiculous! She must only be walking her dog down to the end of the street and back), but she's wearing a leotard and tights and it looks like she has the world's worst wedgie (try saying that three times fast!). I know this because they show a close up of her ass...I guess we're supposed to think it's sexy? Yeah, it's not. Serge would not think it's sexy, heh! (And no, Serge is not in this movie because Pinchot was filming Perfect Strangers.) 

Axel sees a mansion under construction and pulls up to it. Once again, he manages to convince a group of people that he's someone he's not. He quickly learns the name of the couple who live there and that they are away in Hawaii until the end of the week. He tells them he's in charge now and that the couple have changed their plans. According to him, there's "not supposed to be any right angles" and tells everyone to stop. He needs to talk to some people and tells them to go home and take the week off. He ends his little speech with "It's Miller time!" which made me laugh. But once again, I don't know if people in the '80s were really this stupid and gullible or this is just exaggerated for the plot of the movie. Maybe a little bit of both. Either way, he found a nice, free place to stay. 

He goes to the police station where he wants Rosewood and Taggart to show him the letters left from the Alphabet Bandit. Lutz wants to know who he is and in a Caribbean accent, Axel tells him his name is Johnny Wishbone and he's a psychic from St. Croix who's been sent here to help the Beverly Hills police with a crime they're having trouble with. I laughed when he said that Lutz and Biddle (the guy who's always following Lutz around) sounds like Kibble and Bits. It's funny because it's true! That had to be an improvised Eddie Murphy line. In fact, the whole scene felt like it was improvised!

Even though Rosewood and Taggart are supposed to be only doing traffic duty, Axel convinces them to help him find who shot Bogoil. He reminds them he was there for him a couple years ago and they agree as long as they can be covert and keep a low profile. (Ha! Good luck with that!) 

While he was at the station, Axel had taken a shell casing from one of the bullets that hit Bogomil and Taggart thinks they should go to the Beverly Hills Shooting Club and ask the owner, Russ Fielding, about it.

When they get to the exclusive, members-only club, we get another ridiculous scene where Axel takes a paper sack (filled with Rosewood's vitamins) and walks into the swanky reception area. He stops a waiter holding a bottle of champagne and while he's asking what year it is (the champagne, not the actual year!), he dips his hand in the ice and covers his face with water. The waiter answer his question but doesn't question what he's doing. Axel starts breathing heavily and walks carefully towards the desk where the receptionist is sitting. He tells her he's from "Metalux Explosive Research Company" and asks for Russell Fielding because he "ordered these plutonium-nitrate multi-explosive sound-seeking projectiles. The receptionist looks at her records and tells him she doesn't see anything about that and she can straighten this out, but before she can reach for the phone, he stops her and suggests she doesn't "use the phone, sneeze, cough, or anything." He slowly gets up to leave, telling her that she can work it out, but she tells him she can just take it to Mr. Fielding's office and tells him where it is. Uh, wouldn't you be calling the bomb squad if you really thought there were explosives in that bag? I don't know how believable that scene was, but it was amusing. 

Once he's out of her sight, he throws the bag away. I'm sure Rosewood will be thrilled about that. (He'll think that Axel sold them.) He goes into the shooting range room where he finds Russ and asks him about the bullet and he identifies it. The tall blonde woman who we know shot Bogomil is there and comes over and introduces herself as the assistant manager, Karla Fry (Brigitte Nielsen). In a private conversation, Russ tells Karla about the casing Axel brought to show him that was from there and that he made it and others just like it for Charles Cain, the manager of the Shooting Club. Karla goes into an office and tells this information to a man with a German accent. 

  

I need to do a quick fashion corner here and talk about Karla's earrings. They are the most '80s earrings I've ever seen. There are these huge, silver geometric-shaped earrings that cover almost the bottom third of her ear. They look very uncomfortable, not to mention ugly as hell. I posted a picture so you can see what I'm talking about.

While Axel is preoccupied with the shooting range (he gave a fake name to Russ and Karla), we are given some exposition. Charles Cain (played by Dean Stockwell; Al from Quantum Leap!) is called into the office of the German man to go over plans "C" and "D" because they "have promised to deliver Thomopolis $10 million Friday at 6." He wants to avoid the same mistakes they made on the Adriano job. The man wasn't happy that Cain supplied the men on that job with guns from his club, but Cain insisted nobody would be able to trade them and that nobody knows that he (the German) wrote the notes or planned all this. He questions why there is a man in the club asking questions and believes him to be a cop, because who else would be asking questions like those? He shows Cain Axel on the security footage and tells him he's going to kill him. Also, if you, like me, have no idea what the hell they're talking about, don't worry about; it really doesn't matter. This movie gets pretty convoluted and it's best not to ponder everything. 

Cain introduces himself to Axel and asks him if he would like a guest membership. Axel agrees and gives him the address where he can send it to after Cain asks for it. Uh, wouldn't you just fill it out there at the club? I get why he asked for it; after this scene we see Cain give the address to two hitmen in a car. I'm surprised Axel just gave out the address.

I have to laugh because in this scene Dean Stockwell has a cigar he occasionally smokes and he does this exact same thing in pretty much every episode of Quantum Leap. Maybe, like, it was in his contract he had to be smoking a cigar in all his projects. 

Back in the car where Rosewood and Taggart are waiting, Axel tells them a six-foot blonde woman was working in the club and Rosewood replies that a woman of the same description was spotted at the Adriano robbery. Taggart points out there are six foot blondes everywhere in the area. They decide to meet at Axel's "place" in an hour. 

Before he heads back, Axel makes a stop at Bogomil's house where he looks through his office and finds a newspaper clipping about oil price dropping and an ad for a club called 385 North. There's also a photograph of the German man with the name "Maxwell Dent" written in large red markers so the audience can see it. Jan is there too and Axel asks if she can use her connections of working at an insurance company to find out about this Maxwell Dent. 

 

When Taggart and Rosewood arrive at the address of the mansion Axel gave them and find him lounging in the pool, Taggart accuses him of stealing the house, but Axel insists it's his uncle's house. Funny, he's never mentioned having an uncle living in Beverly Hills before! That's what I would have pointed out! Taggart gets angry at him and tells him he needs to get out of the house. Hilariously, he ends up slipping on the concrete (which Axel had warned them was slippery) and falls into the pool. He ends up changing into a super preppy outfit that he finds upstairs: plaid pants white polo, yellow sweater vest, and light blue blazer. (I guess the man who lives in that house is the same size as Taggart!) He looks like he's about to go golfing. He's pretty pleased with himself and thinks he looks "sharp". 

They head out to 385 North, which happens to be a members-only strip club. Axel gets them in by telling the host that Taggart is former President Gerald Ford and he's his representative and Rosewood is his bodyguard. The host says he doesn't look like Ford and Axel asks him if he's ever seen him without his make-up. He convinces the guy it really is the ex-POTUS and adds that he should be proud to have him there and the host says it is a pleasure to have him there. 

Okay, so I looked up Ford's date of birth to see how old he would have been in '87 and the make-up line makes a lot of sense now. He was a lot older than I would have thought; in' 87 he turned 74! I looked up John Ashton's age and he turned 39 in '87, so I'm assuming Taggart is supposed to be the same age or around it. Personally, I think Taggart looks like Dr. Phil (but no accent!), but obviously, nobody knew who he was back then. 

Axel asks the bartender about a blond man named Nik Thomopolis who is seen schmoozing with a few people and finds out he owns the place. He asks his cop friends about him and Taggart tells him he's "the biggest arms dealer on the West Coast." Sidenote: Thompolis is played by Paul Guilfoyle who also played the bad guy in another movie from 1987, Three Men and a Baby. I guess he got sick of playing bad guys that he wanted to play someone who caught the bad guys in CSI:! 

Word must have gotten around that ex-President Ford was at the club because when they get up to leave, everyone else stands up and applauds. 

The two hitmen must have followed them to the club because as the three cops walk to their car, the men pull up to the curb and one of them takes out a gun and starts shooting. The cops dive for cover and start shooting back. The car ends up crashing into a pole and turns over, but the two guys manage to get away (not sure how it escalated so quickly!).

A furious Police Chief Hubbard shows up at the scene. He tells Axel that he checked with immigration and that "they never heard of a Johnny Wishbone." Axel comes clean (sort of) and shows him his badge and tells him he's a cop from Detroit and that he's in Beverly Hills because he's "attached to a multi-jurisdictional federal task force on organized crime and [his] code name is Wishbone." Hubbard just snaps back that he's the Chief of Police and he need to know about any federal task force. Axel tells him he can call his boss back in Detroit between the hours of 9 and 10, central time, and he'll tell him everything he needs to know. The fact that he gave only a one hour window to call his boss should have sent up red flags for Hubbard, but he never questions it. 

This will lead to a hilarious scene back in Detroit the next morning, where Jeffrey, having talked with Axel the night before, calls up Inspector Todd early in the morning pretending to be someone with the "FBI Enforcement Bulletin" (he disguises his voice) and he wants to interview him for some piece he's working on and asks if he can meet him at a diner for breakfast at nine o'clock. I'm surprised Todd said yes; if that had been me, I would have been super annoyed that a) somebody was calling me that early (I wouldn't have even answered the phone!), and b) why are they trying to set up an appointment without giving me that much notice? As soon as Todd leaves for his faux appointment (I hope for Jeffrey's sake, he gave him the address of a diner that's far away!), Jeffrey goes inside Todd's office (apparently he doesn't lock it when he's gone!) and wills the phone to ring. It does, eventually, in a few minutes, but what if Hubbard had waited until the end of the hour to call? By then, Todd would have been back and Axel's plan wouldn't have worked. As it is, by the time Hubbard does call, Todd has come back to the station, clearly pissed that he's been duped (I guess the diner wasn't that far away) and enters his office just as Jeffrey's hanging up the phone after confirming Axel's story with Hubbard. He had been hiding behind Todd's desk and when the Inspector demands to know what he's doing there, he exclaims "This is not my office!" which is a nice callback to the first movie with his "This is not my locker!" line. Paul Reiser was not in the third movie (I assume he was busy with Mad About You or maybe he saw the script and bailed, heh), but he's in the trailer for the new movie coming to Netflix and I hope they give him a similar line. 

Meanwhile back to Beverly Hills and the night before where Axel gets a match off a set of fingerprints he found on a matchbook that was in the car of the two goons who tried to off him. They get a match with Charles Cain and Axel recognizes him as the manager of the Shooting Club. He wants to go there and check it out even though it's 11 at night and closed. He manages to get them in with some MacGyver type maneuver using chewing gum, the foil from the gum, and a pocket knife. I'm not really sure what he did, but it certainly wouldn't work in real life! In Cain's office, they find map coordinates in his locked desk which he broke into. 

They find out the coordinates correlates with the City Deposit which is a federal Reserve Bank where banks take their money. Axel bets that's the next target. He's right and the Alphabet Bandit crosses off "C" and "D" in one fell swoop (does that really count as both, though? Seems like cheating to me, just saying). 

While it's being robbed the next day, the three cops drive there (quite recklessly), but come across construction that blocks their way. Axel and Rosewood are close enough to the bank that they can sound the alarm by shooting it and the bad guys escape and they follow them in a cement truck (yeah, it's just as ridiculous as it sounds) and we get a hilarious scene where Rosewood sideswipes a police car and tells Axel it's okay because he knows the guy and "he's a jerk!" Although, the next moment might have made me laugh more: we see a guy in his fancy car back out of his driveway, but when he sees the armored truck the bad guys are driving comes barreling down his street, he quickly retreats back to his driveway and when he thinks the coast is clear, he backs out again only to be sideswiped by the cement truck. I don't know, that just made me laugh...the guy is being so cautious, but his car ends up getting totaled anyway. 

They eventually spot the armored truck which is empty. Axel finds a $50 bill in the front seat and sees tracks in the dirt and realizes there was a pick-up vehicle. They follow the tracks and it leads them to the Playboy Mansion, of all places. The only really humorous moment during this whole scene is when they drive up in the cement truck and the valet is played by a very young Chris Rock. This would be three years before he was even on SNL! When he sees the cement truck, he says to Axel, "I get $10 for cars, I get $20 for limos. What the hell is this?" Axel gives him the fifty and tells him to put it next to a limo. 

There's a pool party (of course there is) and they somehow manage to make their way in by telling the receptionist (lol was there really a receptionist at the Playboy Mansion?) that they are there to clean the pool which doesn't make any sense since people are already using the pool, so you think they would have it cleaned before the party, but whatever. They just wanted an excuse to film at the Playboy Mansion. Out back, they see Karla, Maxwell Dent, and Thomopolis. Oh, and Hugh Hefner makes a cameo, because, of course he does. He still looks old even back in '87, but thats probably because he was 61. Axel tells Hugh that he wants to give him some information about some of his guests, such as that Thomopolis is "into guns and drugs" and "Max kills cops for a living." Hugh just tells them all to get out. He doesn't have time for this! 

So after that totally pointless scene (although the Chris Rock scene was pretty good, but I'm sure they could have found another small role for him), we find out that the bad guys are ready to set plan "E" in motion. 

Somehow, Axel had managed to pick pocket Dent's jacket and got a card with the information of his financial manager named Sidney Bernstein. He is played by Gilbert Gottfried and is doing his whole Gilbert Gottfried shtick. When the three cops enter his office while he's on the phone, he sarcastically says, "Oh, come on it. Don't let the fact that my door's closed dissuade you in any way from entering my office." Like Murphy, you can definitely tell when Gottfried is improvising! 

We next get this completely ridiculous (albeit hilarious) scene where Axel tells him they're with the Beverly Hills police and that he has 25 unpaid parking tickets and they're there to arrest him. Sidney tries to bribe them to drop the charges and Axel asks for $200 which Sidney is more than happy to part with. Now the most ludicrous moment: Axel asks Sidney if he can use his computer because he has "to wipe all evidence of this transaction out." He even asks him to leave to give him privacy and Sidney is all too eager to leave and let Axel use him computer. The hell? Shouldn't this be a huge red flag for Sidney? Surely he would realize that Axel was using his computer for other reasons because why would a police officer be using some random accountant's computer. It's so stupid, but whatever, the movie just wants you to know that Axel finds information that Dent and Kara are fleeing to Costa Rica soon.

He calls Jan to see what she found out about Dent and she tells him that he "was the cultural attache to the East Germany embassy in Honduras" and "he's got a racetrack, shooting club, drilling rig companies, and an oil company." He learns that Dent is in trouble because "he's let his insurance lapse on everything in the last six months." Tsk, tsk, tsk! Everything that is, except for the racetrack which he has a huge policy for. The racetrack is called Emperium Fields. Looks like we're knocking out the "F" too! 

The three cops reach the horse track, but by then it's too late and the money is gone. Cain has also been murdered (the audience sees Karla shoot him). Around this time, a press conference is being held by the police chief where he says he "is confident that [they] have identified the Alphabet bandit." He says it was Charles Cain because all the notes were signed "Carlos" and that's Spanish for Charles. Axel, Rosewood, and Taggart don't buy it. If the deceased Cain did it, then where is the money? A dead man can't make money disappear! Axel believes that Dent framed Cain for the first few crimes, then killed him on this one so he could get away because then the police would believe they had their man. (Spoiler alert: he's right.) He was buying guns from Thomopolis so he could sell them to his contacts in Central America. 

By this time, the movie is coming to an end and they are led to an oil field where they find trucks filled with explosives. The bad guys are there and there's a huge shootout. Axel kills Dent and Karla is about to kill Axel but Taggart comes to the rescue and shoots her. It was just a tiny bit misogynist when he utters, "Women" after he kills her. 

So the Alphabet Crimes have been solved and the mayor fires the Police Chief. We get one last funny scene with the the mayor calling Inspector Todd to thank him for lending Axel to their case and tells him his "extra tutelage" really paid off. Todd gets on the phone with Axel and exclaims, "Extra tutelage? What the f*** have you been telling them?" 

Just as Axel is leaving the mansion he's been staying in, the couple comes back. I bet that construction company is going to get chewed out for not working on their house at all while they were gone! 

While this movie has some funny moments, I like the first one better. This one has a few scenes that don't seem that necessary. There's a weird subplot with Billy where he's obsessed with guns, knifes and other weapons. Axel and Taggart keep telling him, "We need to talk." This really doesn't fit with his character from the first movie. That being said, the second movie is much better than the atrocious Beverly Hills Cop 3. 

I can't think of one scene in the third movie where Eddie Murphy improvises his lines as I don't think he ever does! He plays Axel way more seriously and it feels like he's trying to be a dramatic actor in a comedy! (And the funny scenes aren't even that funny.) The tone is so odd. The movie was panned and there wouldn't be another Beverly Hills Cop movie for another thirty years! I'll probably yada-yada through most of this as there's a lot of nada-nada here. 

Once again, we begin in Detroit where Axel has organized a raid to stop a car thief ring at a chop stop. Before that happens, the audience sees the criminal mechanics in the garage working on cars. The radio is on and "Come See About Me" by Diana Ross starts playing and they're all bopping their heads to the music, which, I can't blame them because it is a catchy song. But then we get an absolutely ridiculous moment when these two fat guys stop what they're doing to get up and DANCE. They're singing into a fake mic and have a whole routine and everything...wtf is going on? One guy even does a cartwheel in front of the other guy who asks him, "What are you doing?" Uh, you're one to talk! You're also part of this song-and-dance routine! 

The garage door opens and a car comes in and a guy in a suit gets out of the back seat. You can tell he's going to be the Big Bad of the movie. He asks the two fat guys if they had any trouble with the hi-jack and we see a truck that's filled with boxes that says "Property of U.S. Government." The bad guy pumps his fist and gives a comical "Yes!" like he's an eight-year-old who scored a goal in his soccer game. 

 

The fat guys were promised a payment and I knew they were going to get killed instead of paid and I was right. In fact, all the mechanics are gunned down. The crazy thing is "Come See About Me" is still playing when they're shot! This song is a little under three minutes. Just think: one minute you're dancing to Diana Ross; the next you're dead. 

Axel and his team have been given intel that the guys at the chop shop don't have guns, which is probably true, but unbeknownst to them, they're all dead by the time they plan to do their raid. Axel knocks on the door and the bad guy tells one of his cronies to shoot whoever's on the other end. Instead of opening the door and just shooting Axel, he lets Axel, who's pretending he wants to sell car parts, ramble on, until finally, Axel is able to overtake him when the bad guy takes out his gun. 

Long story short, there's a bunch of shooting. Inspector Todd, Axel's beloved boss, ends up getting shot and dies, which I hated, but I guess you need a reason for him to go after the bad guy. It just sucks that this awesome character was killed off by such a dud of a villian. Axel is chasing the bad guy (we'll learn his name later) after he gets away in the truck, but he is intercepted by a man who introduces himself as Steve Fulbright (Stephen McHattie) from the FBI and tells Axel that he got himself in the middle of an investigation and it's important that this man "not be apprehended at this time" because they want to know "where he's going and what he's got and who he's selling it to." 

Back in the chop shop, towels with "Wonder World" printed on them are found. That's a theme park near Beverly Hills and Axel believes he needs to head back to the Hills to find Todd's killer. 

They play the theme song for the first time and it sound different from the other two movies. I did some research and found out that Harold Faltemeyer, who composed the theme song, did not come back for this movie so it's performed by somebody else and it's in the "breakbeat hardcore" version, whatever that is (I just read it on Wikipedia), but all I know it sounds different and the original is better! 

Axel goes sees Rosewood who has been promoted to DDO-JSIOC, which stands for Deputy Director of Operations for Joint Systems Interdepartmental Operational Command. Terrible title! We find out that Taggart has retired to Phoenix. Now, he would have only been in his early fifties, so its seems kind of early for him to retire, but hey, good for him. At first, I just assumed John Ashton read the script and didn't want anything to do with it, but I read that he and Ronny Cox (guy who played Bogomil) had other projects they were working on. Mmm, are we sure about that? 

Another cop has replaced Taggart. Hector Elizondo plays Detective Jon Flint and when I saw him, I jokingly thought to myself, did Garry Marshall direct this movie? (The credits don't roll until the end of the movie so I had no idea who directed it, even though, yes, I realize I could have easily just looked it up.) You can tell that the writers wrote this role with Taggart in mind and they didn't even change many, if any of his lines. There are a few scene where we see Flint in his cop car and he gets a message that things are going haywire at Wonder World and he says "Axel!" like he knows Axel personally and he literally just met the guy only a few hours ago. It's so weird. 

Anyway, Axel tells him why he's come back to Beverly Hills and explains about the towels from Wonder World and that he's going to check out the theme park. Flint tells him he should talk to Ellis De Wald (Timothy Carhart) who is head of park security and "runs the biggest private security force in America." 

When Axel enters Wonder World, he is watched closely by two security guards. I get the feeling "Wonder World" was a placeholder name until they could come up with something a little better (and not so generic) and either they forgot to change the name of they just couldn't think of anything a little more clever. Seriously, who ever came up with the name "Wonder World" has no creativity. 

Axel sees employees entering through a fake tree with a door and he is able to just walk in. You think this door would have a keypad or a swipe code for employees only, but nope, he is able to open the door and walk right in! It leads downstairs where some of the rides are controlled, including one called Alien Attack. There he meets a woman named Janice who doesn't really question who he is or why he's down there. She becomes his love interest...I guess? There's some cringe-y flirting that happens between them and while he does ask her out, we never see them on a date (maybe that's a good thing) and he never kisses her at the end of the movie. He had more chemistry with Jenny from the first movie and they weren't even in a romantic relationship, although they had great banter, but maybe that's because they've been friends for a long time. 

Well, wouldn't you know it...De Wald happens to be the bad guy who shot Todd and Axel is after! Whaaaaa-? Both Flint and Rosewood think he must have the wrong guy or the killer he's after has a striking resemble to De Wald, but Axel is positive it's him. 

Back at his hotel, Janice and Uncle Dave (he's the Walt Disney of Wonder World) tell him that that Roger Fry, the park's chief operating officer, disappeared two weeks ago. He designed the whole park and knows it like the back of his hand. Dave shows Axel a note that Roger left that just says "This is important life and death", but other than that they don't have any information about why or how he disappeared. Axel thinks he must have found something someone didn't want him to find (spoiler alert: he's right).

Serge has come back (Perfect Stangers ended the year before) and we get a funny, though ultimately unnecessary scene with him. Axel and Billy come across him at some convention and he has a "Survival Boutique" booth. I cracked up when he exclaims "Ack-well!" and "Beeeeee-lieeee" and asks Billy if he remembers the espresso he made him with a lemon twits. He tells them that the art gallery has gone bankrupt. I'm surprised he didn't say anything about Jenny or that Axel didn't ask about her. Serge tells them he's selling survival items that "must conform to the 3 P's: protection, prestige, and pretty." He shows them his best-seller, a clunky-looking "gun" called the Annihilator 2000 that doesn't look like any of the adjectives he mentioned. This weapon looks like the most impractical thing ever: its equipped with a phone, microwave, CD player, radio, night vision goggles, verbal alarm system, and video camera among other thing. Did I mention it's huge and clunky and it certainly ain't pretty! 

Axel keeps harassing De Wald, but doesn't have any evidence he's behind Todd's killing. The FBI agent, Fulbright (I guess he has come to California too), reminds Axel to stop messing with his investigation because they "want him doing business as usual." He gives him a first class plane ticket back to Detroit, but we know Axel is lying when he tells Fulbright he'll be on that plane. 

Janice shows Axel the schematics of the park and he enters through a vent and above he spies on De Wald and his men creating counterfeit money. I laughed when they were only printing $1 bills. You'd think they'd print something with more value! He is literally standing above them not even attempting to hide and of course De Wald sees him and the bad guys go after him, but he gets away and calls Fulbright from a payphone in the park to tell him what's going on. 

The bad guys are able to to find him because of the security cameras and soon they have him surrounded. In a move I didn't quite understand, he takes out his gun (how the hell was he allowed in with a gun...oh, never mind) and shoots it in the air, then lies it on the ground. Why would he do that with all these people around him, not to mention many children? I didn't quite get that. They had him surrounded and they were going to apprehend him, regardless. They bring him to the underground offices and Fulbright comes in, wondering why he's not in Detroit. Axel tells him he knows what he's investigating and goes to show him the room where he found the counterfeit money. Only the money that's being printed is fake play money called Wonder World dollars. Apparently it's easy to change the setting! 

Later, Axel meets up with Uncle Dave (on the side of a street) and wants to know about the guy who disappeared. He takes another look at the note and realizes that it was written on the paper that the fake money is being printed on and it has a barcode or something to prove that it's being used for the counterfeit money. IDK, but now he has proof that counterfeit money is being made and as he says that, here comes De Wald and some of his goons. They had followed Uncle Dave and De Wald shoots him. Axel manages to get away and drive Uncle Dave to a hospital where he will survive. We never do find out what happened to the guy who disappeared. I mean, obviously they killed him, but we never found out what they did with the body. I guess the point of that storyline was that the note was written on the fake money paper. 

Anyway, yada, yada, yada, Axel ends up back at the underground offices of the park because De Wald has told him to come with the mint paper or he'll kill Janice, who he has hostage. On the way there he stops to get the Annihilator 2000 from Serge. Rosewood and Flint find out he's headed to Wonder World (damn it, I always want to write "Wally World" instead!) and head there too. 

 

Axel refuses to give De Wald the paper, there's a lot of fighting, yada, yada, yada, Billy and Janice end up trapped behind a glass door that protects something when there's a fire...IDK, who cares...Axel gets away, there's more fighting and gun shooting, yada, yada, yada. 

We will get a scene of Axel using the Annihilator 2000 against a couple of goons and at first it shoots out a net, then plays rap music, then old-timey music until it finally sprays bullets the men. Then yada, yada, yada, more bad guys are killed in the alien space ride we saw from before, we see that the trapped Billy and Janice get out and Flint has arrived. I can't remember who it was, being either Billy or Flint shoots a bad guy who falls out of the chairlift ride. Like, this amusement park has now officially become a crime scene. For some reason the annoying "Wonder World" song (think "It's a Small World After All") is playing on a loop and Flint screams (to nobody because everybody around him is dead), "Turn that f***ing song off!" I think that was the only part of this scene I laughed at. 

Finally, Axel eventually kills De Wald in some dinosaur ride and here comes Fulbright asking if he's okay. Earlier, I had thought either he or Flint is a bad guy disguised as a good guy and as soon as he points his gun at Axel, I had a good hunch it was him! Luckily, Flint shows up ad Axel is able to take a surprised Fulbright and kill him with his gun. 

There's a super weird scene where Rosewood walks in, all bloodied on one side and walking funny and asks if they're okay before collapsing. They just start laughing, saying he needs medical attention. Not sure why they're laughing when their friend looks like he's knocking on death's door!

But it's okay because everyone is okay and in the last scene we see Uncle Dave dedicating a new Wonder World character to Axel, a fox named Axel Fox. Why the hell would they want to remember this day of bloodshed? Anyway, thank God the movie is finally over. 

If you want to see Judge Reinhold in a better ' 94 movie, see The Santa Clause (and it's not even like I'm a fan of that movie, but it's better than this one!); if you want to see Hector Elizondo in a better movie that takes place in Beverly Hills, see Pretty Woman; if you want to see a better Beverly Hills Cop movie, see the first, second, or upcoming one on Netflix. Yes, the one on Netflix hasn't been released yet, but I'm confident it will be better than this one! I'm pretty sure they learned from their mistakes of this one!