Santa Buddies: The Legend of Santa Paws Blu-ray offers solid video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
The buddies are off on a jolly new adventure when Puppy Paws, pup of the legendary Santa
Paws, and his friends travel to the North Pole to save Christmas from disaster!
Stop me when this sounds familiar. The polar ice cap is melting, an energy crisis threatens to bring an end to civilization as we know it, and something has to be done before it's too late. No, you didn't open the wrong review, that's the setup for Santa Buddies: The Legend of Santa Paws, the latest in a soon-to-be endless line of direct-to-video Buddies films that follows the indelible talking pups to the North Pole. The polar ice cap is melting at an alarming rate, but not because of global warming. Turns out the world's rampant disbelief and waning holiday spirit is reducing the Great Christmas Icicle to slush... far faster than Santa Claus (George Wendt) or his aging sidekick Santa Paws (Tom Bosley) ever predicted. There is an energy crisis, but it traces back to the Icicle's function as a massive power source for Santa's manufacturing line, his vehicles' fuel, and even the health of his reindeer. And immediate action is required before Christmas as we know it becomes a distant, materialistic memory. Seriously, I can't make this stuff up...
From left to right: B-Dawg, Rosebud, Buddha, Mud Bud, and Budderball...
Enter the Buddies: wise philosopher Buddha, perpetually famished troublemaker Budderball, outdoors enthusiast Mud Bud, thinly veiled racial stereotype B-Dawg, and the pack's ever-prissy resident female, Rosebud. When the rightful heir to Santa Paws' all-too-literal throne, a rebellious runaway named Puppy Paws (Zachary Gordon), is captured by a cantankerous, old dog catcher named Stan Cruge (Christopher Lloyd), the Buddies have to rescue the misguided pup, find a way to save Christmas and the North Pole, and help Cruge rekindle his holiday spirit. So, for those keeping track, writer/director Robert Vince crams a retelling of The Christmas Story, an ill-fated global warming analogy, a gang of chatty dogs, a story of human and canine redemption, a reimagining of the entire Claus mythos, and a variety of extraneous subplots into an 88-minute children's film. As you can imagine, it doesn't take long for this North Polian romp to head south. Worse still, with so much story to plow through, Santa Buddies is painfully slow, inching along at times, stalling out at others. My son, a five-year-old franchise fan and a prime member of the film's target demographic, wandered off after fifteen minutes, checked back in on three occasions, but quickly returned to his Bakugan battlers and Star Wars figures.
As difficult as it is to stomach Space Buddies -- to me a bland and boring mishap, to my son the pinnacle of conversational canine cinema -- it at least gave Buddha and his compatriots something to do. In Santa Buddies, they simply stare at each other and chat. Other dogs are introduced, chase scenes ensue, and the quintet even earn a place on Puppy Paws' sleigh, but after a few seconds of scrambling across the floor or hopping to their pre-designated mark, the "actors" are terribly static. Even the human performers, blessed with real mouths, tend to stand around and suffer through their close-ups. Wendt, God love him, frequently looks frightened to move, the elves try to make the best out of being rooted to one spot, and the Buddies' owners lack personality and screen presence. Only Lloyd and Danny Woodburn (playing Santa's head elf) seem willing to give the dim-witted direct-to-video misfire their all. I found myself wondering why Lloyd hasn't been cast as Scrooge before, and found myself wishing the diminutive Woodburn (who chewed scenery as Big Figure in Watchmen) had more diverse roles to choose from than rosy-cheeked elves and token little people. But, charming as the pair are, nothing can save the film from its script. Dense, nonsensical plot points abound, every preachy message point is forced, and the dogs rarely say something memorable.
Patient pre-schoolers may be entertained by Santa Buddies, but most everyone else -- even tots who adore Air Buddies and Space Buddies -- will be bored long before Vince's film gains any momentum (of which it has little). While it seems like it would be a surefire hit amongst kids, I have a feeling a lot of parents will be surprised at how quickly their children disengage from the narrative and begin looking for something else to do.
While Santa Buddies' direct-to-video aesthetics and low budget roots undermine most of what Disney's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer is able to accomplish, the Blu-ray edition nevertheless offers a solid high definition presentation. Not only is its Tinseltown palette brimming with bold colors and dazzling sparks of light, primaries pop, skintones are warm and natural, and contrast is strong. Detail is relatively impressive as well, besting its DVD counterpart with improved clarity and crisper textures. The film's steady stream of cartoonish special effects still look positively outdated -- a two-dimensional ice cave and a fleet of soft-furred reindeer (among other elements) echo the low-rent CG of the '90s -- but shouldn't be used as a measure of the technical transfer's proficiency. However, artifacting and banding sometimes interfere with the proceedings, black levels fail to bottom out on occasion, and edge enhancement, though judiciously applied, rears its ringing head in a handful of shots. Even so, the image is quite clean and should satisfy anyone armed with appropriate expectations. No one, young or old, will confuse the quality of Santa Buddies' presentation with that of a Hollywood blockbuster, but wide-eyed kids and brave adults alike won't find much to complain about.
The same can be said of Disney's DTS-HD High Resolution 5.1 surround track. Able-bodied, steady, and stable, the studio's lossless efforts are only hindered by Santa Buddies' limited soundfield and predictable design. Voices remain crystal clear throughout -- no surprise there considering the majority of conversations consist of a dog staring at another dog -- and clattering cookie sheets and toppling packages are well-prioritized. And while the LFE channel and rear speakers aren't tasked with any heavy lifting, they do manage to inject enough weight and presence into the mix to help it outclass other direct-to-video family tracks. The only downside? Sleigh rides, cracking ice caps, malfunctioning North Pole assembly lines, and other dynamic elements are few and far between. Likewise, directional effects are reserved for action-oriented scenes, ambience is subdued (at least when the cameras leave Santa's workshop), and acoustics, beyond those featured in more obvious locales like caverns and kennel wards, are uninvolving. Regardless, Santa Buddies isn't Star Trek or G.I. Joe, nor does it try to be. Its audio track, although nothing to ask the Big Man for this Christmas, is decidedly decent and worthy of some measured praise.
Santa Buddies doesn't have much for kids to dig through other than a trio of Buddies Christmas Sing-A-Longs (HD, 3 minutes) and a wince-inducing music video (HD, 3 minutes).
Santa Buddies will entrance young, patient pre-schoolers, but leave most other kids in the cold. Meanwhile, parents will be left suppressing laughs, hiding critical glances, and containing their cynicism. Ah well, at least its Blu-ray release has some value. While its supplemental package is nearly non-existent, it features a decent video transfer and a commendable DTS-HD Master Audio track. Alas, its pricepoint is too high and the film itself is a plodding waste of time. Bah. Humbug.
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