By Geno McGahee
The WWE are hit and miss when it comes to their productions. Obviously, showcasing the Rock (Dwayne Johnson) was a good idea and led to movies like WALKING TALL and THE RUNDOWN, but then they produced terrible films like SEE NO EVIL with Kane and THE CHAPERONE with Triple H. So, I stumbled across SANTA’S LITTLE HELPER with WWE superstar, The Miz (Mike Mizanin) and Paige (Saraya-Jade Bevis) and was pretty optimistic. I liked the other WWE holiday movie JINGLE ALL THE WAY 2 and perhaps this one would bring some laughs. Considering it has the Miz in it, I figured it would be pretty good. He can be very funny.
Dax (Miz) is a ruthless businessman that has no reservations about dropping the hammer on the little people. He lives off of others and isn’t well-liked. His world crashes and he loses his job, his girlfriend and his house is about to be foreclosed on. He goes to a center for poor children and starts yelling at it when Santa (Eric Keenleyside) shows up and makes the decision to consider Dax as the next “Ho Ho Ho,” some occupation at the North Pole.
Santa sends Billie (AnnaLynne McCord), an elf, to work with Dax and see if he has the qualities to be the Ho Ho Ho, but this angers another elf, Eleanor (Paige/Saraya), who wants the position. Despite the conflict, we don’t see a lot of Eleanor. She’s not very involved in this film and I thought that she would be a bigger part, considering the relationship with Billie and Dax.
Billie takes Dax on several tasks to prove his worth. She begins by dropping him off at biker bar to start some trouble. This is where Miz shows his potential. He gets into a fight with the bikers and there are some funny moments, including him throwing peanuts at one of the rough bikers and noting that he was “hoping they had a peanut allergy.” Unfortunately, the film begins to fizzle very shortly after this.
For some reason, Billie forces Dax to dress like a monkey and perform at a kid’s party and then has to go to a senior center and entertain the elderly people. The story gets really muddled and it seems that these scenes were written hoping that they would get laughs and didn’t really move the story forward and it wasn’t funny either.
Dax and Billie start to connect romantically and she finally reveals that she works for Santa and offers him the job. He takes the gig but now has to go head to head with Eleanor in an obstacle course with the winner becoming the Ho Ho Ho. Ugh.
This film was shot in California, I think, and it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all. It is sunny and the only snow is CGI and it’s not very convincing. During the obstacle course, it looks like a summer showdown and I’m sure that it was. The film had more issues than just no snow, but it would have been easier to accept this as a holiday film if it looked and felt like one.
SANTA’S LITTLE HELPER wasn’t written well, which is a shame because Miz and Saraya and also Keenleyside had great potential to make a funny movie. Miz tried very hard to make this work and succeeded at times, but the film just doesn’t come together and really dies after about 30 minutes into it. There is no real direction and the pacing is not good.
I can’t recommend this one. I was able to make it through it, mostly due to the cast trying to make this work, but they had nothing to work with.
