Santa's Little Helper (2015)

Christmas comes but once a year.  Not everybody celebrates it, yet it’s one of the biggest holidays observed around the world.  It began as a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.  Somewhere down the line, it turned into much more of a consumerist extravaganza where people would buy gifts for one another.  Somewhere in that realm of purchasing things for one another, the concept of the Christmas spirit became a thing.

Many movies have tried to capture the Christmas spirit in their stories.  The idea was touched upon last year in the post for The Littlest Light on the Christmas Tree.  A character much like Ebenezer Scrooge would learn how to be nicer to people around Christmas and change their bah humbug ways.  It is one of the most common storylines found in Christmas movies.  Person is self-centered, then they are shown how to be a better person, and there’s a happy ending where the world will be better because of their kindness.

Santa’s Little Helper was a 2015 movie that shared this story structure.  The WWE produced film followed Dax (Mike Mizanin), a greedy businessman who was recently fired from his job.  When Billie (AnnaLynne McCord) showed up and offered a mysterious job, Dax had to complete a series of tasks and battle it out against Eleanor (Saraya-Jade Bevis) to earn the position.  The position?  They were competing to become Santa’s little helper at the North Pole.

There were some good moments throughout Santa’s Little Helper that kept it from being the chore that many made-for-television or direct-to-video Christmas movies are.  The performances were decent throughout the movie, not requiring any heavy lifting, but still bringing the fun necessary to make the proceedings entertaining.  Everyone fit their parts well enough that nobody felt out of place.  It was a solid group of actors filling what could have been empty, hollow shells of characters.

The three primary characters were Dax, Billie, and Eleanor.  Billie and Eleanor were elves working for Santa when the role of Santa’s little helper was vacated.  Both wanted the position, though Billie would never admit that to anyone because she was not a character to feel entitled to the position.  Eleanor, on the other hand, thought that the position should be hers.  Santa had other ideas.  He sent Billie to check out Dax, the potential first human to fill the position, and see if he had the qualities that make a good helper.  Billie was Dax’s aid to try and help him overcome the challenges that Eleanor threw in his path.

Along the way, Dax had to perform different tasks.  He had to tell a bunch of bikers in a bar that he had damaged one of their bikes.  He had to work at a children’s birthday party in a location similar to Chuck E. Cheese’s.  He also had to help someone without thinking of his own well being.  He didn’t succeed in all of the tasks, but he learned enough to help Santa and help save something important to himself from his childhood.  It was something that would help children of future generations build a better world.  He had turned into a good person by the end of the film.

Billie was by his side the whole time.  She was pushing him to be a better person.  Whether it was that she got him out of his comfort zone and into the tasks, or whether it was that she supported him while he was going up against Eleanor, she was there to be his drive.  She helped Dax shed his self-centered skin.  The money, cars, and women weren’t the most important thing in his life anymore.  Billie opened Dax up to seeing that helping others and building a community were the foundations of a good life.

With Santa’s Little Helper being a light holiday comedy, there were bound to be funny moments sprinkled throughout it.  Not all jokes landed.  There were a good number of duds throughout the runtime.  There were some good ones, though.  The most notable, and the one that stood out most, was a joke said during the children’s birthday party scene.  While Dax was hiding out in the jungle gym, he had to give some advice to a small girl.  She said that she had a crush on one of the other children at the party, to which he responded that she should ask him out.  The girl refused his advice, however, and said that she’d rather just punch the child and that he could figure it out from the punch.  This was the childhood logic about bullying the person you like instead of simply sharing your feelings.  That joke landed in ways that other ones didn’t.

All in all, Santa’s Little Helper was a mildly enjoyable Christmas movie that the whole family could watch.  It’s not one to necessarily go back to year after year.  It is a movie that could entertain the whole family for the time that it is on.  The WWE produced a decent holiday film, which is kind of surprising, considering they don’t normally dive into that area.  Action films are their thing.  But they put together this one, with The Miz and Paige in two of the leading roles.  It came together, and that’s all that matters.  A Christmas movie that brings people together.

Now for a few notes:

• The Littlest Light on the Christmas Tree (week 264) was mentioned in the post.
• Mike Mizanin has been featured in a bunch of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  More specifically, he’s been in three Marine movies.  He was in The Marine 3: Homefront (week 30), The Marine 4: Moving Target (week 154), and The Marine 5: Battleground (week 237).
• Maryse Mizanin had a small role in Santa’s Little Helper.  She was in The Marine 5: Battleground (week 237), as well as Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190).
• Tony Skinner had parts in The Marine 5: Battleground (week 237) and Santa's Little Helper as well.
• Leela Savasta returned to the Sunday "Bad" Movies with Santa's Little Helper.  She was previously featured way back in The Craigslist Killer (week 17).
• Another returning actor in Santa's Little Helper was Kathryn Kirkpatrick, who was in Stan Helsing (week 64).
• Finally, Karen Holness was in Santa's Little Helper as well as Air Buddies (week 270).
• Have you seen Santa’s Little Helper?  What did you think about it?  Was it good or bad?  Did you enjoy it?  Let me know what you thought in the comments section.
• The comments and Twitter are good places to let me know what you think I should be checking out for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  If there’s a movie that you think I should see, tell me about it.  I may not have heard of it and would consider it for a future week.
• Sometimes when I’m watching bad movies, I’ll share clips of them on Snapchat.  If you want to see that kind of thing, add me (Jurassicgriffin).
• Finally, let’s talk about what will be going on next week.  So, I don’t currently have my schedule.  I don’t currently have a lot of my files for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I’m going this on the fly right now, so the movie I’m going to watch will not be the one that I had originally planned to watch.  Pottersville is still on Netflix Canada, so I guess I’ll toss that one in here.  It’s bonkers.  If you don’t know what Pottersville is, look it up.  It’s worth checking into.  I’ll see all of you next week for another post.