The Movie
Ask anyone who has witnessed the holiday horror of a blubbering me and you'll know that I am a sucker for just about any story that involves saving Christmas. I'm not proud of this sentimental Achilles' heel, but there we are. And so it was with an open mind that I slid Santa Buddies into my Blu-ray player, only to endure one of the most amateurish, apparently make-it-up-as-we-go fiascos in years. Seems that a young dog named Puppy Paws--son of Santa Paws, Claus' right-hand canine--is going to inherit yuletide responsibilities from his dad, but his shortsighted wish that Christmas would disappear leads to a sudden, drastic drain on the magic is stored within The Great Christmas Icicle. (Who knew?)
He flees to a perfect little town in search of the rascally Buddies (four he-pups and a she, each embodying a different Hollywood stereotype), just wanting to have fun, but instead comes to learn the true meaning of torture by inflicting it upon anyone in the audience with an I.Q. higher than three. To top it all off, the acting is horrendous, too. Even the dogs sometimes look like they're reading off of teleprompters.
The Picture
Santa Buddies was shot on digital video, and as a result streaking is evident even in modest motion within the 1.78:1 frame. The extremely bright lighting yields many crisp shots, and colors are strong, but the CGI special effects are embarrassingly bad, with high-def doing nothing to soften the blow. The quality of the backgrounds varies; some fine and some looking heavily compressed; while blacks are routinely nothing more than lifeless voids.
The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio track has some surprisingly good 5.1 moments, as when we are in the sonically three-dimensional ice cave or on a crowded workshop floor, with both the bustle of toy-building and the clarity of a spontaneous Christmas carol. There's even a pleasing sled flyover or two, the rustling of leaves in a park: more detailed than I expected but certainly not spectacular.
The Extras
The disc invites us to follow the bouncing paw and sing along with three traditional Christmas carols as warbled by the Buddies, specially created for this feature in different locales from the movie, with clips edited in as a painful reminder (three-and-a-half minutes total). These are joined by a music video of Steve Rushton's stylized rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (two-and-a-half minutes). Both of these extras are in HD. A standard-definition DVD of the movie and the aforementioned bonus features is included in the package as well.
Final Thoughts
Curiously my two kids, who usually talk about movies long after the end credits, have not mentioned this one since. But I'm told that the Buddies represent the most successful live-action direct-to-DVD franchise in the history of live-action direct-to-DVD franchises, so what do we know?
Product Details
- Actors: George Wendt, Christopher Lloyd, Danny Woodburn, Craig Anton, Andrew Astor, Michael Teigen; voices of Zachary Gordon, Josh Flitter, Skyler Gisondo, Liliana Mumy, Ty Panitz, Field Cate, Tom Bosley, Richard Kind, Tim Conway, Kaitlyn Maher, Chris Coppola
- Director: Robert Vince
- Audio Format/Languages: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (French, Spanish)
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Number of discs: 2
- Rating: NR
- Studio: Walt Disney
- Release Date: November 24, 2009
- Run Time: 89 minutes
- List Price: $39.99
- Extras:
- Sing-Along with three Christmas carols
- Steve Rushton music video, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"
- DVD of the movie and extras
