Santa with Muscles (1996) Legacy Releasing Corporation/Comedy RT: 97 minutes Rated PG (brief mild language, comic book style action violence) Director: John Murlowski Screenplay: Jonathan Bond, Fred Mata and Dorrie Krum Raymond Music: Melody Clark-Curzon and James Covell Cinematography: Michael Gfelner Release date: November 8, 1996 (US) Starring: Hulk Hogan, Don Stark, Robin Curtis, Garrett Morris, Aria Curzon, Adam Wylie, Mila Kunis, Ed Begley Jr., Steve Valentine, Clint Howard, Kai Ephron, Diane Robin, Kevin West, William Newman, Robert Apisa, Pierre Dulat, Brenda Song. Box Office: $220,599 (US)
Rating: ***
Rule of thumb, any movie starring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan will be an automatic stinker. Anybody who has ever suffered the indignity of sitting through Mr. Nanny knows exactly what I’m talking about. To be fair, I did like Suburban Commando; it makes for decent guilty pleasure viewing.
I was hoping for the same when I sat down to watch Santa with Muscles, a movie that looks and sounds bad on every conceivable level. I guess I should feel lucky then that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Shockingly, it’s actually pretty good in a dumb sort of way. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of those movies that used to open exclusively as family matinees back in the 70s and 80s, silly movies like Earthbound and Zebra in the Kitchen that no self-respecting adult would pay full ticket price to see at night.
Santa with Muscles was obviously made with undiscriminating grade school audiences in mind. I can’t see where this would possibly appeal to anybody over the age of 11 or with an IQ exceeding double digits. It has to be one of the stupidest movies I’ve ever seen with a villain who wouldn’t last a minute against any given comic book superhero, yet I find that I can’t completely dismiss it as an all-out stinker. Blame it on the generosity that comes with the Christmas season.
Hogan plays self-made bodybuilding supplement millionaire Blake Thorne who cares only about himself and his own needs. In true Scrooge fashion, he isn’t very nice to his household staff. He forces them to take part in daily combat exercises in which he painfully beats them down. One day while driving recklessly to a paintball game, a bumbling policeman (Howard, Ron’s little brother) chases him right into the local shopping mall where, through a series of ridiculous circumstances, he’s mistaken for the mall Santa.
Thanks to a case of amnesia after being hit on the head with a big plastic Santa, Thorne can’t remember who he is or anything about his life. It doesn’t help that a dishonest store elf named Lenny (Stark, That 70s Show) lifted his wallet while he was unconscious. Santa Blake immediately makes a name for himself when he soundly thrashes two punks who were trying to steal money intended to help save a local orphanage known as “the Children’s Mission” from the evil Abner Frost (Begley, Private Lessons), a rich germophobic scientist who’s buying up all the property in the area.
Believing he really is Santa Claus, Blake decides to use his extraordinary physical strength to save the Mission from Frost and his goofy henchmen. He shows up at the orphanage to find that three children still live there with social worker Leslie (Curtis, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock) and maintenance guy Clayton (Morris, Saturday Night Live). Naturally, they take Blake (and Lenny) in and the children start to bond with this muscular version of St. Nick, even altering his costume to show off his impressive arms. It should be noted that one of the children, Sarah, is played by Mila Kunis (That 70s Show, Black Swan) in one of her first roles. Eventually, they all discover why Frost wants the property so badly. The reason is so moronic it’s not even worth repeating, but I will remind you that he is a scientist.
It goes without saying that Santa Blake (1) saves the day for all involved and (2) defeats the dastardly villains. It’s a Christmas movie for kids (?!) and a happy ending is inevitable. However, Santa with Muscles tries to be clever and throws in a last minute shocking revelation about Blake’s past. It’s as equally stupid as everything else in the movie.
It would have been one thing if the filmmakers had kept things simple by sticking to the Blake Thorne storyline. You know, a selfish, cold-hearted millionaire finds redemption by helping a trio of cute orphans keep their home during the holiday season. I don’t understand the need for a comic book villain like Abner Frost here. Couldn’t they have just introduced a greedy plot developer who needs a dose of redemption himself? I guess they were trying to appeal to the boys in the audience who like action, but are too young to see any of the movies.
I doubt Santa with Muscles will do it for them. It’s too silly to be taken as anything other than a moron movie. Take the henchmen- they are geologist Mr. Flint (West, Bio-Dome), chemist Mr. Vial (Ephron, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th) and electrified Ms. Watt (Robin, RoboCop). Aren’t the names hilarious? My sides still hurt from laughing.
There are no good performances in Santa with Muscles. There are plenty of embarrassing ones. Somehow that feels right for this particular film. Hogan is no actor; we already established that. The kids aren’t especially cute. The youngest one Elizabeth (Curzon) is particularly annoying and grating. There’s a very painful scene where she and Hogan sing a duet of “My Angel Baby” in a chapel. It’s almost as bad as when he sang a lullaby to the little girl in Mr. Nanny.
I can understand why Santa with Muscles didn’t receive a wide release. Who would go to see it? A lot of the “kiddie matinee movies” from back in the day have rightfully fallen into movie oblivion, but thanks to the magic of home video and DVD, I don’t think this one will ever go away. That’s fine with me. I’ve seen worse, much worse. Santa with Muscles is a holiday classic when compared to the miserable Christmas with the Kranks. That one gave me a headache. Hulk’s movie merely made me shake my head in disbelief. It feels like the correct reaction to such utter silliness.
