#61 Santa With Muscles (1996) (Colin)

Well I tell you somethin’ mean Gene, I am a massive Pro Wrestling fan brother so when I found out our next movie starred a wrestling legend, I was pumped!

Since the 80’s I have followed the spandex adventures of those larger than life characters in WWE, (formerly WWF), and more recently TNA and RoH.  Last weekend I even went to see a small British wrestling company called Wrestleforce and it was fantastic, really good entertainment.  So it’s fair to say I’m a bit of a fan, (and how I ever got a wife, I’ll never know!).

So as you can imagine, when I learned that our next movie involved a wrestling legend, I got a bit excited!

The 80’s were the heyday of professional wrestling, (the attitude era of the 90’s took it to the next level, but in terms of game changing, it was undoubtably the stars of the 80’s who brought pro-wrestling to the masses).

Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man Randy Savage, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels all became household names, but none more so that the one and only, the immortal, Hulk Hogan.

Admittedly, recently he has become a bit of an arse and has nearly destroyed my favourite promotions, TNA, but, there is no doubt that this man changed the face of pro-wrestling and without him, there would have been no TNA in the first place, or RoH, heck, even WWE may have continued to be a struggling indy company trying to break into the mainstream.

So, drink you milk, take your vitamins and say your prayers Santamaniacs because whacha gonna do, when awful acting in a bad Christmas movie comes for you?

 #61 Santa With Muscles

Arrogant Blake Thorne, (Hulk Hogan), is a self-made millionaire who has made his fortune from health supplements.  One day, whilst driving like a loon on his way to a penis sizing contest, (aka paintballing), the local cops start chasing him and he is forced to abandon his dick swinging competition and to find refuse in the local mall.  In the mall he falls over and bangs his head, suffering amnesia, (I tried to replicate this several times during the movie, but unfortunately did not succeed).

When he awakes he see mall elf, Lenny, (Don Stark), who for a bit of a giggle tells Blake that he is Santa Claus.  Blake falls for it, (obviously common sense wasn’t knocked into him), and he starts ho ho hoing before you know it and does a shift in the mall’s grotto.  Hilarity ensues when two nasty robbers try to steal the orphanage money from the mall and ‘Santa’ duffs them up proper good.  I say hilarity, I mean mind numbing boredom.

‘Santa’ decides to take the money to the orphanage where he meets the staff and kids and forms a friendship.  He soon learns from them that all is not well and that an evil man called Ebner Frost, (Ed Begley Jr.), who has been buying property around town, now plans to get hold of the orphanage.

So why is Frost doing this?  Redevelopment?  A new mall? A luxury housing complex? Nope, it’s because there are some magical crystals underneath the orphanage which he would rather like, (OMG, kill me now).

Frost isn’t working alone though, no siree, he has 3 henchmen, each more dull and uninteresting as the last.  A bloke who likes the smell of methane, some S&M lady who has 9 volts of power emitting from her hands and an English doctor who has a stethoscope.

The movie then turns into a very dull slapstick with ‘Santa’ trying to stop Frost from succeeding.

Eventually ‘Santa’ regains his memory and Thorne realises that he should be a better man and decides rather than go back to his arrogant ways, he should carry on helping the orphanage to defeat Frost.

We also discover that Thorne was actually an orphan himself, but had just clean forgot and we also learn, (and I hope you are sitting down for this earth shattering discovery), that Frost was at the same orphanage as Thorne, but he had also forgotten that.  I’m sure you’ll agree that for excitement, this movie really stops (and begins) at nothing.

And so a final showdown ensues under the orphanage and Frost manages to open the door into the world of magical crystals, but don’t worry, Thorne saves the day although I must admit I forget how and quite frankly, I can not be bothered to revisit it to find out how!  The End and Happy Christmas one and all.

The first thing that strikes me about this movie is that for a Christmas movie, it doesn’t feel at all Christmassy.  This is probably because throughout the entire movie they are basking in 90 degrees of Californian sunshine.  No snow, no roaring fire, no family arguing over watching the Queen’s speech or the Bond movie.

Miracle on 34^th Street?  Miracle this movie was ever released!

Then there’s Hogan’s acting, which if you have seen Suburban Commando or Mr. Nanny, you will know there is no risk of an golden statuette adorning his mantelpiece.  However, in Santa with Muscles Hogan’s acting has reached a new depth of bad and this time I am more annoyed about it than his other movie outings.

In 1996, Hogan, who was with WCW at the time, stunned wrestling fans by doing the unthinkable and turning heel, (for non-wrestling fans, essentially this just means he went from being a ‘goodie’ to being a ‘baddie’) .  The vitamin popping, prayer saying, God bless America goody two-shoes Hogan was gone and in his place Hollywood Hogan was born.

Hollywood Hogan went on to lead probably the most successful heel stable of all time, the New World Order, (nWo) and as the bad guy, I have to admit, he was brilliant.  Hollywood Hogan was nasty, scheming and greedy and Hogan pulled off the persona fantastically well.

So why the brief wrestling history lesson?  Well, the character of Blake Thornton is also supposed to be nasty, scheming and greedy but for some reason Hogan plays him as a non-entity who is as camp as a row of tents.  There’s no mean streak, no dark side and no attempt at playing a baddie.  And that is what infuriates me, because Hogan can play this character, Hogan can be the bad guy but for some reason he just plays a dumbed down mild mannered version of his original whiter than white Hulk Hogan character in WWE!

I don’t know whose fault this is, whether it’s the studio who wanted Hogan to be family friendly but not as loud and brash as his wrestling character or if it was a conscious attempt by Hogan to prove that he can play multiple roles, (he can’t).  The fact of the matter is Hogan can only play 2 characters and both of these characters would have been ideal for this movie.

Hollywood Hogan – could have played Blake Thorne

Hulk Hogan – Santa and the later ‘nicer’ Blake Thorne

So to me there is no excuse for the poor acting, as for once, Hogan was capable of playing the roles.

Finally there is the comedy, or rather should I say, complete lack of it.  The slapstick is not funny, the gags are lame and the only thing I found funny thoroughout the 90 minutes was Hogan’s poorly fitting wig.  The rest is forgettable and even a henchman who is obsessed with fart smells missed the mark.   This shows how poor the comedy is when even fart gags fail to make me laugh.

Santa with Muscles is billed as a Christmas comedy movie.  In theory it only needed 2 things; to be Christmassy and to be funny and it failed miserably on both fronts. 

It’s not unusual for wrestlers to try making a movie career for themselves and also it’s not unusual for them to fall down on their arses!  There’s John Cena’s yawn action thriller, 12 Rounds, Mr Kennedy’s, (AKA Mr Anderson for TNA fans), equally snoozy action thriller, Behind Enemy Lines and Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash and Sid Vicious' terrible and not at all scary zombie romp, River of Darkness.

As I said earlier on, I like Hulk Hogan the wrestler, I really do and it’s fortunate that over time, his movies will be completely forgotten and he will be remembered, quite rightly, for his wrestling achievements.  As for his acting career, it should be put into a no disqualification steel cage match and put out if it’s misery brother!