Matchmaker Santa (2012)

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

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

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Good points: It stayed nicely focused on Christmas...with Christmas décor and scenes, and with Santa, Christmas cookies and all. The plot flowed nicely. The lines were good. The acting...*except for mentioned below... was OK at best. (I've seen worst.)Bad points: 1. Even though it had "snow"...and was supposed to be cold...somehow it gave the impression that it really was filmed in the Spring or Summer. The deciduous trees where they picked up Santa, were green and lush. The deciduous trees in the forest still had their leaves...there was even an outdoor tropical plant in front of the porch at the home. The male star had his coat open, wearing it over a t-shirt. He looked as if the coat made him too warm to bundle up. All the players looked too warm when they were outside.There was just too much conflict between the time of year and the profound abundance of over-looked details that suggested it really was NOT that COLD time of year. And I think that really, really distracted from the movie.2. *Florence Henderson and her *friend were constantly over-the-top obnoxious!........ Florence with her over-bearing, nasal cheerfulness, was too silly....and the friend was just plain, over-bearing in every way. I've seen this movie a few times, and I hate to sit through it when they are featured.

Meh. Another run-of-the-mill Made-for-TV Christmas movie that has no special charm yet isn't pure trash either. Lacey Chabert (Party of Five and the original Meg on Family Guy) is nice enough to watch. Florence Henderson (Mrs. Brady) adds a nice touch. But overall this does nothing for me. It's a romance, a chick flick, a Christmas movie chick flick and the Hallmark Channel is quite adept at making these. Plus they have a disease of adding too much musical score that's too loud -- they don't rely on strength of dialogue, they cheese it up which is most unfortunate. Not that this is all that strong but they oughta give movies a shot instead of masking them with unnecessary background music.5.6 / 10 stars--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of the other reviewers about this movie. Whoever edited and handled the sound for this movie, forgot to turn down the music when the actors were speaking. And the stalker Santa popping up all over the place was maniacal instead of magical. I guess that the producers and directors also thought that the plot/script were lacking, so they decided to throw in Florence Henderson and Lin Shaye as two "ditzy" cookie makers for comic relief who, instead, just come across with cringe-worthy silly performances. And the very capable John Ratzenberger could have been much better used in this film. There's too much plodding sub-plot going on with a focus on character quirks that didn't add to the overall story. Consequently, the whole thing felt fragmented and sort of lame. I kept checking the time to see when it would end.

I am an avid Christmas movie watcher and like just about every Christmas movie that I have ever seen, but unfortunately this was not one of them. The acting was terrible and the plot was weak. The Santa character was very creepy and most of the other characters made it difficult to feel any sympathy or empathy for them. The ending was too pat, with people changing partners with no real lead up to one of the couples ending up together, (except for some shared memories of dating in high school), and no reaction from the boyfriend of his employee and girlfriend ending up together. All in all, I say save your time and spend it on much better Christmas movies like '12 Dates of Christmas', 'A Christmas Kiss', 'Desperately Seeking Santa', 'Eve's Christmas', 'Holiday In Handcuffs' and 'Very Merry Daughter of the Bride'.