…Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

As much as it pains me to say this, honesty requires that I must: “Santa Clause 3” wasn’t as God-awful bad as I thought it was going to be…or, more specifically, it wasn’t as bad as the God-awful trailer for the film would’ve had me believe.

I mean, man, when I first saw that thing, my reactions were as follows:

* “The first film was legitimately enjoyable, the second one had its moments, but the funniest joke here appears to be the one in the title. The trailer is 100% laugh-free. David Krumholtz – formerly known as Bernard the Elf – should be sending his agent a solid gold Mercedes this Christmas for getting him ‘Numb3rs’ and keeping him far, far away from this picture.”

* “As Santa is my witness, the only highlights are the clips from the first two films. It’s really that unfunny. Example: a kid tells Jack Frost to ‘just chill,’and he howls, ‘I invented chill!’ Ughhhhhh.”

“Awful awful awful. Count on a solid opening weekend, but, God willing, word of mouth on the playground will kill the flick quickly after that. Even the under-10 set should have better taste than to accept this.”

And y’know what? I meant it. All of it. Every word. It was just that damned bad.

Having now subjected myself to a viewing of the film, however, I walked away from the experience far less horrified than I ever would’ve expected. Yes, there’s plenty of cheesy kid stuff in the flick, and if the inclusion of reindeer fart jokes isn’t enough to send most people with a modicum of taste running for the exits (or, in this case, the “eject” button on their DVD player), Martin Short’s hammy performance as Jack Frost will probably do the trick. If you can make it to the halfway point of the film, though, it falls back on the old “It’s A Wonderful Life” bit of seeing what the world would’ve been like if Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) had never put on the Santa suit but Jack Frost had instead. It’s a hackneyed Christmas plot device, but as a sci-fi geek who always enjoys a good alternate-universe tale, I still enjoyed it; it was also entertaining to watch Scott figure out how to get his old life back. Even Short earned a laugh when, after Jack’s plans have been foiled, he just kind of blinks and says, “Well, that didn’t work out like I’d hoped.” The best part of the film, though, was the surprise of finding Alan Arkin and Ann-Margret as Scott’s in-laws; I’m sure I’d known at some point that they were in the cast, but I’d totally forgotten it until they appeared on the screen. As ever, Arkin scores laughs, and Ann-Margret…well, she coasts by just by being herself.

I’m still of the opinion that only the first “Santa Clause” film is a must-see, but if my kid wants me to put this in at some future juncture, I probably won’t twitch…much.