Movie Review: The Search for Santa Paws

The Search for Santa Paws

Walt Disney Home Entertainment, Keystone Entertainment, Key Pix Productions, Santa Paws Productions, USA, 2010.

Santa Claus (Richard Riehle) gets sad news. His old friend Mr. Hucklebuckle has died. He had time to send a toy dog to Santa. James (John Ducey) and Kate (Bonnie Somerville) Huckle inherit Hucklebuckle's toy store. Lawyer Stewart (Bill Cobbs) tells that the Huckle's must manage the store at least for one Christmas.

Santa Claus

James and Kate

Little girl Quinn (Kaitlyn Maher) has to go to Ms. Stout's (Wendi McLendon-Covey) orphanage. Ms. Stout hates Christmas. The orphanage is not a nice place and Ms. Stout burns all toys. The oldest girl Willamina (Madison Pettis) is friend of all the other girls.

Ms. Stout

Willamina and Quinn

Christmas Icicle's magic turns the toy dog into a real dog named Paws (voiced by Zachary Gordon)! Paws becomes Santa's faithful helper. Christmas spirit of New York is waning. Santa visits NYC for PR-purposes but gets hit by a car and loses his memory. Also thief (Chris Coppola) steals his bag and magic necklace. Santa gets a job in Huckle's toy store as Santa.

Paws meets a pack of stray dogs: Haggis (voiced by Jason Connery), Rasta (Christopher Massey) and T-Money (Josh Flitter). The dog trio and some other people promise to help find Santa. Quinn wishes for toy dog and Paws arrives to orphanage to spread Christmas spirit. Without his necklace Santa gets sick and Paws turns into a toy dog (now that is one awkward situation). Also Eddy the Elf Dog (voiced by Richard Kind) and Eli the Elf (Danny Woodburn) travel to NYC to find Santa.

T-Money, Rasta, Haggis and Paws

Toy Paws

This is prequel to "Santa Buddies" with more focus on the human actors and without the Buddies. Musical numbers, cute dogs and cute kids should give adults a sugar overload. Still some scenes of toys going into Ms. Stout's incinerator might scare very small kids. Richard Riehle's Santa is a nice fellow but there is something uncanny about his make up. Also the Huckle couple and the kids were likable. For a doggy movie the dogs seem to have less screen time than in "Santa Buddies." Still the movie is quite enjoyable Christmas tale for kids, with message of Christmas spirit and some passable songs.

Rating: Average

Starring: Reese Alexander, Diedrich Bader, Sahar Biniaz, Danny Woodburn, Jan Bos, Ameko Eks Mass Carroll, Melody B. Choi, Dawn Chubai, Jason Connery, Bill Cobbs, Chris Coppola, Michelle Creber, Patrika Darbo, Michael Deyermond, John Ducey, Josh Flitter, Pete Gardner, Zachary Gordon, Jen Halley, G. Hannelius, C. Ernst Harth, Eric Keenleyside, Richard Kind , Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Alex Kliner, Nicole Leduc, Amber Lewis, Kaitlyn Maher, Christopher Massey, Tom McBeath, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Jonathan Morgan Heit, Mitchel Musso, Peter New, Nic Novicki, Adom Osei, Mark Parr, Madison Pettis, Mikey Post, Richard Riehle, Nathan Smith, Bonnie Somerville, Jakob Davies, James Ram Jattan, Megan Lee, Eddie Pepitone, Pia Mia Perez, Ian Thompson

Director: Robert Vince