“Being thin is not great.” – Jack "Jack Frost" in the career of Michael Keaton is such a measure of decline. After the beautiful, cult images of Batman in the films of the same name by Tim Burton da Beetlejuice, the same Burton, Michael somehow kept quiet about himself for a long time, presenting acting performances of the level of his early years to the audience, that is, the same good “Mr. Mommy”. Something more, even similar to “In a sober mind and solid memory” or “Dangerous Johnny”, Michael did not provide. And it is a shame, because the actor is extremely capable and talented. But here we are talking about another, because the efforts of one act of the main character of the story, the film is not good, and when earlier, in the career of this actor, in most cases, the entire caste was more or less a coordinated mechanism, why the final picture came out quite good, then here such “slack” is felt everywhere, why the final product is such a symbiosis of a uniquely worthy idea, by the standards of a family film, and its extremely weak implementation.
Here you can see with the naked eye how director Troy Miller tried to create an indisputable New Year classic in the likeness of Chris Columbus’ One House, which has already become a cult. The traits that seem to be related to these films are unambiguous - a little boy faces a problem that is associated with his family, from which, problems, tries to get out, get rid of it. Only here the approach to resolving a different one, because the main theme of the script is completely different and, to put it mildly, quite magical: the return of his father from the dead in the image of a snowman. That is, when Macaulay Culkin coped with everything alone, Joseph Cross (Charlie Frost) does it with the help of previously deceased father Michael Keaton (Jack Frost), who, in fact, returns to him in the image of the notorious snowman, and well ironic about his resurrection in such a stupid form through the fault of the name or other forces unknown to him.
Having such a plot, the film is extremely weak with its manifestation. That is, there are no questions about the topic of the tape itself, as well as the message about the importance and value of the family, the call to do everything when it is possible to leave your mark on the Earth in the form of your own children fully, and not rudimentary, that is, to be with your relatives just as much as life gives, and not the lust for glory. These aspects are good and, albeit ordinary, but as always pleasant for the viewer to realize, even repeated, for these are immortal themes that are especially pleasant and should be remembered on New Year’s Eve or Christmas. But here is a framing of many inappropriate jokes "below the belt", strange moments with an equally strange performance of surprise and other things that can be met by a person in life if he sees a talking snowman - all this is done frankly weakly, such do not believe. Just as you do not believe in the existence of Jack Frost himself in the form of three lumps of frozen water: computer graphics in many moments clearly “cut the eye”. Looking at the budget, $85 million, is so impressive. But: the chromakei is too noticeable, the background is often blurred, the movements of the snowman and the objects with which he interacts, no, no, not synchronized - these are already post-production problems, for which it is also offensive.
That is, in the end, you can not say that this film is terrible and categorically bad – it is not. It's made quite lazy in many aspects, and on a decent level in others. Michael Keaton's music and songs, which he composed and wrote himself, are good, especially if you do not go into translation from English (the text is a tribute to the age rating after all). Operator work is also not bad. Multiple snowy landscapes, images of streets strewn with snow - all this is impressive and gives that bit of New Year's atmosphere, which the film tried to provide the viewer. Acting is uneven, as was said earlier, but with its absence on the screen still sometimes the viewer sees true feelings, because personally I do not yet know how, apart from the epithet “professionalism”, to explain the last, really fascinating and touching shots.
"Jack Frost" - not bad finally, but also not a very good film, which can give a share of pleasant emotions, if, so to speak, "turn off the brain" and, relaxing, watch the development of the story, albeit sad, but rather cute and naive, which has many pleasant, moralistic traits that are not in addition to it interspersed with an overabundance of failed aspects of the film.
P.S. Thank you very much.