Forgettable Movie Files - Jack Frost (1998)

FAIL Frost


Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Forgettable Movie Files. At the end of each week, I shall break the norm and talk about a movie that actually deserves to disappear in the sands of time. Enjoy.

Now that Old Man Winter is going on vacation and we've all got spring cleaning to look forward to, I've decided to talk about Jack Frost. This pile of yellow snow does for the holidays and snowfall what the Black Plague did for Europe, it just SUCKS. In it, the once-great Michael Keaton stars alongside Kelly Preston in this family film about a man who comes back from the dead as a snowman. I am not making this up.

Jack Frost (Keaton) is a musician with little time for his wife (Preston) or son (Joseph Cross) until a drive home from a gig with his band in a blinding snowstorm causes a fatal crash. But one year later, his kid plays a magic harmonica or something like that, and Jack's soul comes back inside a snowman. Now, "he's only got one chance to prove he's the world's coolest dad." Groan.

Now is it just me, or does this sound like the perfect premise for a low budget horror movie? Oh, wait, maybe it's because there WAS a low budget horror movie with the exact same premise and title that came out just one year before this...how original. Gee, the screenwriter for this movie should have gone on to write Friday the 13: Jason goes to Kindergarten.
Anyways, I feel sorry for Michael Keaton. He was Beetlejuice and Batman and now...this. He needs to get his life back on track! Well, he's doing some voiceover in the Pixar movies now, so I guess he's redeemed himself. Sort of. But he's unbelievably bland in this movie...I mean, it's a bad sign when the creepy looking snowman puppet is a better actor than you are.

This whole movie is comparable to snow in that it's so lightweight and full of air. Since the premise is rather simple, the filmmakers add in some pointless suplots to fill in time. For example, there's the school bully that every kids movie is required to have, a rather long chase scene, and a pointless subplot about a former member of Jack's band played by the enormous Mark Addy. Really, this guy looks like he ate twelve dozen cheeseburgers and the director before going on set.

Now you're probably wondering, how does it all end? Well, Jack starts to melt in the rising temperatures (take that, republicans! If global warming can melt a reincarnated snowman, then it is real!), his son tries to save him, but Jack realizes that it's time to go. Wait...why now? Couldn't you just move to Alaska or something? I mean, it's not every day your father comes back from the grave! But no, Jack abandons his child and wife in a flash of bright swirling energy, because the special effects artists wanted to show off. Though don't worry about those two. As Jack says "If you love someone in your heart, you can never really let them go." GAAAAHH!!! Too...CLICHED!!

You know what else I hate about this film? The dialogue. Lines like "Snow dad is better than no dad!" and "My balls are freezing! ...I never thought I'd say that with a smile on my face" are actually allowed into the movie. That's another reason why Jack Frost is more like Jack...no, I'm above that joke.