Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Though this movie sports a decent cast it still falls short of creating a decent movie. For one, the story isn't too original. Santa is feeling a little under-appreciated and so decides to take the year off. The thing is he doesn't since everything is resolved before Christmas Eve - so even the title of the movie is incorrect.Then, though I've loved Goodman since Rosanne, he just doesn't cut it as the big guy, and his head elf in charge of toy production, Sparky (Kattan), is just plain annoying. If it wasn't for Ethan Suplee and Eddie Griffin as the rogue elves in search of a human child who still believes in Christmas then this would have been one dire movie.Harvey Fierstein is great as the Fire Meiser who along with his brother Snow Meiser control the Earths weather. It's Fierstein's loud and gruff voice along with his overacting that adds to the comedic performance of his character. It's just a shame that they have to sing... and to have some pretty dreadful special effects, especially in the boxing match when Sparky gets into the action.There are a few decent ideas, such as "The Divide" which separates the real world from The North Pole and "The Veil" which keeps them hidden from onlookers. There are also a few good scenes, I particularly liked the BEGOTHS at the toy expo in the opening sequence.That said, I wouldn't really recommend this movie to many people as it appears staid and dated by today's standards. I even think that kids could be bored and uninterested as the film is uncertain of its audience - kids, teens, young adults, adults? It feels uncomfortable trying to please everyone.If there's nothing else on and you're trapped in your home while in a blizzard and there's nothing else to watch...

I was a mixture of skeptical and excited to find this movie in the $5 section at the store. AYWASC is my absolute FAVORITE Christmas classic movie. I didn't figure I would like it as much as the animated one, but I decided to give it a fair shot, because how bad could a John Goodman movie be? If you can get past the utter cheesiness of the movie, it's not terrible. You're not going to beat the classic, no matter how hard you try, however I can see this movie being able to stand on it's own. It's definitely not a children's movie, but for a work-night time-filler, it gets the job done. It's just as heartwarming as the animated version, and it definitely has it's funny parts. Will I watch it again? Maybe next year. I'm glad it was only five bucks, though, because I wouldn't spend another dime for it.

An abomination so heinous, so repulsive, so reprehensible that the excess amount of bile that my body doesn't process because of my missing gall bladder creeps up my esophagus thinking about it.I speak of the atrocity that was recently aired on CBS - The Year Without A Santa Clause. Not the beloved Rankin/Bass production, but a live action piece of televised diarrhea. John Goodman as santa, Delta Burke as Mrs Claus? Harvey Fierstien as Heat Miser?!!!! Dear god in heaven what have they done?...... What have they done? ( I was saving that for when the US was nuked ah la Jericho, but this is worse... far worse).I'll admit that curiosity made me tune in. I'm human. But Randy from My Name is Earl as Jangle? A black Jingle? Dancing girls in the Heat Miser/Cold Miser numbers? When did a bump and grind ( over and above the Victorias Secet Fashion Show) become a part of Christmas tradition? The claymation Misers didn't need it. No they didn't. They were pure entertainment. I'd rather the controversy of devil/angel that kept it off TV for so many years to a musical number from Solid Gold.Someone needs to bury this, and bury it deep. Its a national disgrace. You want insurgents to surrender- tape their eyes open and force then to watch this over & over. It will make them beg to be degregaded at abul grad.The tragedy of this is that it was 2 hours. I only watched 20 minutes before I was diving for the puke bucket.

I fondly remember the 1974 Rankin-Bass version of "The Year Without A Santa Claus" and was looking forward to seeing this. I feel let down by it in just about every aspect. The casting was so-so, John Goodman did a fair job as Santa, but Delta Burke as Mrs. Claus wasn't given as much to do as Shirley Booth in the original. Chris Kattan's Sparky became annoying quite quickly, as did the script's constant barrage of in-jokes for adults (since it was shown at the 9PM-11PM time slot they probably thought it was necessary to attract an adult audience.) But the most grievous fault of this film was to fail to capitalize on the most memorable part of the original: the Miser Brothers. Their catchy ragtime theme song was the one thing that people associate with the original. I felt the casting of Harvey Fierstein and Michael McKean was not strong, plus the idea of splicing together the brothers singing instead of having each one sing his version separately diminished the impact of the song. If they were going to stretch it out to two hours, they certainly should have found time for both versions of the song. Carol Kane's Mother Nature seemed to me to be a direct ripoff of her Ghost of Christmas Present in Scrooged. Stick with the 1974 version, this film is a Christmas turkey.