DVD Reviews

Santa Buddies (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) – Blu-ray Review

By Dana Rae Dec 9, 2009, 20:25 GMT

Disney s irresistible talking puppies return in a heartwarming all-new holiday adventure!

Continuing the money-making franchise that started with Air Buddies, Santa Buddies is a Christmas movie you might want to be a Grinch about and pass by.

The dogs that talk include Butterball (Voiced by Josh Flitter), B-Dawg (Skyler Gisondo), Buddha (Field Cate), Rosebud (Liliana Mumy) and, of course, the new kid, um, pup in town, Puppy Paws (voiced by Zachary Gordon).

I never watched any of the original Buddies movies, so I might not be the person to write this review. However, my sons loved Space Buddies and now they adore this one. My oldest said to give it 5 stars, but I am not going to go that far.

But you can probably deduce that kids would love this movie. It is very kid-worthy. Just not very interesting to adults. But I had to watch it to review it so here goes. I will try not to be too harsh in my adult-orientated assessment.

It is badly edited. The special effects are bad. The story plotline needs a lot of help.

Not only does Santa make and deliver toys for children, but he has a helper, Santa Paws (voiced by Tom Bosley), that delivers gifts to good little puppies and puts bad little puppies on the naughty list (Butterball is on the naughty list for eating the Thanksgiving turkey). 

Puppy Paws does not want to inherit the magic of Christmas that will be passed down to him, so he wishes to the Christmas icicle (bad special effects here) that Christmas would just disappear. Then he gets in the magical mail truck and ends up in Butterball’s hometown.

The Christmas icicle has been melting for sometime anyway, but a little magic is left. As Puppy Paws searches for Butterball (who he saw on the naughty list and wants to be like), he spreads a little Christmas magic via the icicle/crystal on his collar.

He finally finds Butterball at his manor house on the outside of town and falls down the chimney (more bad special effects). The others at the North Pole have realized that their puppy Christmas prodigy is missing and start to look for him.

This should be a redeemable movie since it has Christopher Lloyd, but even he couldn’t save it. Lloyd plays the dog catcher Cruge (hahaha---Scrooge, I get it) who runs around with a butterfly net and catches poor, helpless puppies and throws them in his puppy/dog catching van.

Of course Cruge has to learn the meaning of Christmas, yada yada yada. This movie made me want take up Scrooge’s mantel and ba hum bug my way through the holidays.

Another complaint I had (among many too numerous to name) was Santa (played by George Wendt who played Norm on Cheers). I don’t know if Wendt was just collecting a holiday payday or what, but it seemed he had no interest in the role. Come on now! How hard is it to play Santa?

It seems he was just reading his lines off of a cue card. Even his ho-ho-ho sounded lame. Perhaps he was channeling the tired and weary Santa that the end of Christmas magic has given us…

This is not a holiday movie that will be remembered. It will not go down in movie history as a holiday favorite, ie, the movies that we want to watch over and over this time of year (Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas Vacation). It will entertain kids, but that is all. Two stars.

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