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| Film vitals |
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· Year: 1998
· Director: Troy Miller
· Writer:
· Cast: Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston
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| Series info |
· Not to be confused with the 1997 horror flick Jack Frost.
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Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
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| Synopsis |
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A year after musician Jack Frost dies in a winter road accident, he returns to make amends with his bitter son--but as a living snowman.
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RATING
Out of 100 |
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40
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| COLD ANALYSIS |
| 1.5 -ATMOSPHERE |
| 0.0 -GORE |
| 2.25 -HUMOR |
| 0.25 -SCARES |
| 2.0 -TENSION |
Critics (even amateurs, such as I) often have the opportunity to bemoan the times when talented people work in projects that are beneath them. Such is the case with Jack Frost. I will stand behind the belief that Michael Keaton is quite possibly the most versatile performer in Hollywood today, and it pains me to see him in stuff like this. It's not just Keaton who's lowering himself, though; Mark Addy and Kelly Preston also both deserve better. Jack Frost isn't terrible, to be fair. However, it has no idea what it wants to be. On the one hand, it panders to kids by including scenes of fake "wonderment," like one in which the snowman fires rapid-fire snowballs and another in which he snowboards down a hill. I wasn't impressed by either. Then, on the other hand, there are jokes that will make some parents uncomfortable at the thought of their kids seeing the film; one involves Jack waking up as a snowman and becoming upset because he now lacks genitalia. The joke itself isn't that bad, but I could have done without the image that ensued. So who should watch it?
Jack Frost does try to show the effect a deliquent but well-meaning father can have on a child, but it falls short. Perhaps the four writers didn't know what they were talking about--I'm not one to say. Either way, the father-son relationship doesn't ring true. In this situation, a son is likely to have a little more faith in his father than does the kid in question, even if that faith isn't rewarded. And although the father-son angle seemed fake to me, the husband-wife relationship is all but ignored. At least Kelly Preston's character is independent, and the movie rightly doesn't make a big deal about it--it's just the way it is. However, even the good parts of this film are upset by a finale that is meant to both 1) show kids how they should get along and 2) that they will need to let go of dead loved ones, but 3) just feels artificial.
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