Dashing Through the Snow (2023)

It almost works thanks to Lil Rel Howery, but <em>'Dashing Through the Snow'</em> ultimately falls flat.

Howery does produce some good stuff as Santa, though he - as with the film in general, really - isn't given enough to work with to make it a success. There is mild amusement throughout, but the film needed more entertainment from its plot and much better pacing to be enjoyable.

The bad guys are particularly poorly written and used, while the Xmas vibes aren't really all that abundant. The cast, namely Howery, Ludacris and Madison Skye Validum, all do try and are the film's strongest element. I just needed more from elsewhere with this, I could feel my interest waning from around the midway point.

If there's one thing Disney can in addition to animated movies, it's family movies. Unfortunately, this movie does not join their ranks of high-quality family movies. There isn't a single well-known actor in it, and the ones that are in it aren't necessarily picked from the top shelf. There is a girl among those who can be said to be the main characters, and she is basically the best actress.

In this movie, Disney goes to great lengths to say that Santa is not the Santa we know from other movies. He's African-American, wears a burgundy-red suit and his beard is actually black, but was dyed white a while ago. Now, however, the regrowth is very strong so it's about 50/50 black and white. According to Santa himself in the movie, the fact that he should have a white beard is something we Scandinavians (I'm from Norway) came up with, and then that impression has stuck.

The plot of the movie is a separated social worker, working for the police, who gets a call out on Christmas Eve while celebrating Christmas with his 9-year-old daughter, and therefore has to take her with him. He is called out to help Santa Claus himself, but of course no one believes that he really is Santa Claus, they think he is a mentally disturbed person. Santa is on the run from some bad-guys working for a corrupt politician who on TV says he will fight for the running of an institution for the homeless, while in reality he wants to close it down. The social worker and her daughter are then dragged into that.

The movie has some good scenes, but all in all it's not good enough. As a family movie, it works well. The target audience among children is those who are the same age as the girl in the movie, i.e. around 9 years old. Adults will also find a number of references that make it suitable for them too. But as a Disney movie, it was a disappointment.