The Santa Clause 2 (G)
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This came out in 2002, eight years after The Santa Clause. I'm reviewing it after watching it in 2022, and I honestly couldn't say for sure whether or not I'd ever seen it before. I'm guessing I had, but... whatever, it's not important. Um... Charlie is a teenager, now, and he has a six-year-old half sister named Lucy (Liliana Mumy). He also has a crush on a friend of his whose name I'm not sure was ever mentioned, and I think it's a bit of a shame that she wasn't more important to the story. Meanwhile, he's getting into trouble by tagging school property, in protest of the school's lack of Christmas decorations, I guess. The principal, Carol Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell), doesn't want to waste money on such frivolous things, that could be better used for academic purposes. Because of Charlie's vandalizing, he ends up on Santa's naughty list, much to his father's surprise. So Scott will have to leave the North Pole to deal with Charlie's behavior. But not before Bernard and another elf, Curtis (Spencer Breslin), inform him of a second clause that requires him to get married by Christmas Eve, or relinquish the role of Santa. Why it has to be this year in particular is never explained, and seems pretty arbitrary, to me. But anyway, his trip to the regular world to deal with Charlie will also give him an opportunity to try to meet women he could potentially marry. Of course, he only has 27 days, which isn't a lot of time to fall in love. He eventually does fall in love with Carol, and she with him, which required me to suspend disbelief over the rushed nature of their brief relationship.

Meanwhile, Santa was still needed at the North Pole, so before he left, Curtis used a machine to create a sentient, life-size toy version of Scott, to do Santa's job while Scott was away. Unfortunately, the toy Santa becomes obsessed with obscure rules and is convinced that all children belong on the naughty list for minor infractions. I found this whole "B" plot pretty silly, and I think that without it, there would have been more time to develop Scott and Carol's relationship. Still, it did lead to my favorite joke of the movie, a line that was lifted straight from Toy Story, and another character of Tim Allen's. So that was neat.

I don't really feel any need to reveal any more of the plot. I will point out that this movie is rated "G", compared to the "PG" rating of the first movie, and it's definitely more family-friendly. In my review of the first movie, I said I wasn't sure the cynical and saccharine aspects of that movie mixed all that well, but now I think having this one be more one-sided in nature worked even worse. But that's mostly because of how silly everything about this movie was. (Even the reindeer are sillier than before.) It really is pretty much a straight-up kids' movie. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I'm capable of enjoying movies targeted at kids. This one just didn't do it for me. There were things I liked about it, but not many. Probably the best part of it was Mitchell's performance as Carol.

Followed by The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause