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The Search for Santa Paws
Blu-ray ALL - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (24th December 2010). |
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The Film
 In Disney no stone is left unturned in the search for more products. After spinning off the “Air Bud” franchise (1997-2003) into the “Buddies” puppies franchise across multiple movies (2006-Present) and spinning off the spinoff into a prequel based all around the Santa Paws character from “Santa Buddies” (2009) in “The Search for Santa Paws” (2010). Apparently Disney has all the time in the world for countless puppy based spinoffs but no longer has time to market specifically to younger girls since they apparently aren’t as profitable, and instead we need to recenter boys in the target audience. Instead we get filled with some more puppy babble around Christmas that not only has heavy Christian overtones, but generally treats children as unintelligent. In this prequel we get a bit of backstory to Santa Paws as he was created through the magic of Christmas thanks to the Christmas icicle at the North Pole. Of course then Santa Paws and Santa Claus (Mitchel Musso) then fight for the Santa Cause, traveling back to New York after the death of his dear friend Mr. Hucklebuckle. Unfortunately Santa gets hit by a car and loses his memory. Meanwhile there’s an evil orphanage run by Ms. Stout (Wendi McLendon-Covey) where the new girl Quinn (Kaitlyn Maher) isn’t too happy. Meanwhile Mr. Hucklebuckle’s grandson comes to inherit the old toy store, but doesn’t feel the Christmas spirit as he waits to sell the place, but needs a profitable Christmas season in order to sell it off. But can he learn the true meaning of Christmas. Lacking the outright ridiculous hilarity of the bad “Buddies” series of movies that came before, “Santa Paws” emphasizes all the worst aspects of the last film but with some new messages. Other than old fairly racist messages of the last movie, there’s an assault on the impoverished. All the villains in the movie are homeless or with welfare, while the black girl is continually punished for the mistakes of all others in the orphanage. Well played Disney. Combine that with Christian moralizing and exclusionary overtones, such as the cantankerous butcher of the kosher deli that chases off the dogs, with some great stereotypical accents. Its genuinely insulting to the intelligence of children, it could take a few notes from the “Tinkerbell” series 2008-2011) of movies that actually provide some degree of interesting pieces that can lead to larger conversations with children. Though who knows the future of these movies since little girls are apparently no longer marketable according to the Disney label and more efforts need to be made to appeal to young boys, rather than providing more engaging female protagonists that can counter gender norms and go for both audiences. And the acting sucks. Honestly there’s not much more to say about the movie that can present anything of redeemable value. No one in the movie can act or even put on a semblance of performing for the sake of the movie. Every single one of the digital effects presents a new depth of budget constraint, every single one of the dogs’ mouths features worse CG than the next. But that’s where it gets funny again, all of the songs are so ridiculously written and all of the interactions with the animals and the actors just keep mining the depths of bad acting and bad interaction with CG characters. Overall “Santa Paws” is just about the follow up you would expect from the Buddies movies and especially during the Christmas season. Everyone has to be taught the meaning of Christmas, along with strong moralizing and an evil dog catcher for good measure, because nobody makes the dog movie villain roster more than the catcher. There are some gems, like the "Best Friends Forever" song over a montage of Santa Paws hiding in parts of the workshop and reappearing, with Santa Claus reacting every time, but really the middle of the move is just a pit that offers little hope for escape until the end of the film and the return to the Christmas icicle to climax with some weird Jesus Christ/Santa Paws resurrection.
Video
Presented in 1080p 24/fps with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and AVC MPEG-4 encoding, the film looks blindingly clear, with some great contrast that helps to really show whenever they are on green screen or anything with some of the magic they call computers becomes glaringly obvious and just generally like they didn’t put much effort or budget into the effect. Otherwise the colors in the movie are very bright and have a ridiculous sheen to them that becomes eerie in its own right.
Audio
The main audio track comes with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix at 48 kHz/24-bit and it brings the terrible soundtrack to life, complete with all of the musical segments and the different magic sound effects for the movie. All put together the audio represents a good transfer to the disc, but it’s the problem of trying to do something with nothing, considering the actual script and soundtrack doesn’t bring anything to the table to begin with. I always find these weird divergences hard to rate, because I need to downgrade the rating because of the terrible noises the movie makes, but at the same time the technical proficiency is there. But really the offensive sounds coming out of the film rate worse than the technical aspects do well, so I have to mark it down fairly harshly. There are also French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks, along with English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish subtitles.
Extras
“Santa Paws” comes on a 2-disc combo set, the first being the Blu-ray and the second DVD with no real special features lost between the two as it is all presented with a featurette, an interactive feature, a music video, deleted scenes, promos and bonus trailers. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY First up is a featurette called “The Hucklebuckle Hero” which runs for 6 minutes and 54 seconds. The entire story is told through the Buddies in the form of an animated pop-up book. It’s a bizarre short story, not including any of the actors or voice actors from the original movie, but rather the Buddies voices that remind you of just how annoying they were in all their movies. The next special feature is a “Sing-Along Mode” interactive feature that just puts sing along subtitles across the screen for the run of the film. The music video is “Deck The Halls” performed by one of Disney’s test tube singers Debby Ryan. Chilling. Finally are the deleted scenes called “Off the Cutting Room Floor”, they aren’t marked individually in total, but instead play all together for 11 minutes and 51 seconds. Even the time codes still hang around and are largely unfinished with Santa Paws still having the cg marking lines on its face for them to insert the CG marks onto the dog’s faces. Finally comes “Learn How to Take Your Favorite Movies on the Go with Disney File Digital Copy” promo runs 1 minute and 4 seconds. Bonus trailers are for: - “Bambi: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 15 seconds. - “Tangled” runs for 1 minute and 45 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2” runs for 2 minutes and 6 seconds. - “Disney Blu-Ray 3D” runs for 1 minute and 25 seconds. - “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 19 seconds. - “Prep & Landing” 33 seconds. - “Treasure Buddies” runs for 1 minute and 5 seconds. - “Fantasia and Fantasia 2000” 1 minute and 22 seconds. - “The Lion King: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 27 seconds. - “Dumbo: 70th Anniversary Edition” runs for 1 minute and 20 seconds. - “Alice in Wonderland: 60th Anniversary Edition” runs for 53 seconds. - “The Incredibles” runs for 1 minute and 21 seconds. - “Cars 2” runs for 39 seconds. - “ABC Family” runs for 31 seconds. DISC TWO: DVD All the same special features from the previous disc carry over but with the addition of “Dylan &Cole Sprouse: Blu-Ray is Suite!” promo which runs for 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Bonus trailers on the disc are: - “Bambi: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 15 seconds. - “Tangled” runs for 1 minute and 45 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2” runs for 2 minutes and 1 second. - “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 20 seconds. - “Disney Blu-Ray” runs for 1 minute and 7 seconds. - “Treasure Buddies” runs for 1 minute and 6 seconds. - “Prep & Landing” 32 seconds. - “Fantasia and Fantasia 2000” 1 minute and 20 seconds. - “The Lion King: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. - “Dumbo: 70th Anniversary Edition” runs for 1 minute and 19 seconds. - “Alice in Wonderland: 60th Anniversary Edition” runs for 52 seconds. - “The Incredibles” runs for 1 minute and 21 seconds. - “Cars 2” runs for 36 seconds. - “ABC Family” runs for 32 seconds.
Overall
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