| Santa with Muscles | |
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 VHS Poster | |
| Directed by | John Murlowski |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Michael Gfelner |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | James Covell |
Production companies |
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Release date |
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Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $220,198 |
Santa with Muscles is a 1996 American Christmas comedy film starring Hulk Hogan and directed by John Murlowski. It was released for two weeks in cinemas.
The movie starts off with Elizabeth (Aria Curzon) writing a letter to Santa, explaining that the citizens of Lakeville have left because of an evil scientist named Ebner Frost (Ed Begley Jr.) who plans to buy the orphanage. He bullies Mr. Rini into selling his shoe store with the help of his henchmen, Drs. Blight, Watt, Flint, and Vial. Rizi relents, and the orphanage is the last to be targeted.
Blake Thorn (Hulk Hogan), a conceited self-made millionaire who sells bodybuilding supplements and equipment that have his picture on them, practices exercises with his staff before joining up with his paintball squad. He is targeted by police including an officer namer Hinkley (Clint Howard) after he and his friends are speeding. Abandoning them, he hides out at a shopping mall that is waiting for their mall Santa to show, and changes into a Santa costume. He manages to trick Hinkley and another officer at first who are looking for him, until Hickey spots Thorn’s paintball uniform and gives chase again. Blake hides out in a garbage chute, but as the officers leave a janitor throws a big Christmas display that knocks Blake out and sends him down to the bottom floor. An elf named Lenny (Don Stark) assumes him to be another drunk mall Santa and proceeds to rob him from his money, until he realizes that he’s hit the jackpot upon finding Blake’s ID. Blake has no memory of his name when he comes to, but Lenny convinces him that he’s Santa.
Blake assumes the identity of mall Santa for the kids, until he sees two people steal money that has been set aside to help the orphanage. Santa battles the two crooks, and gets a rousing applause by the long line of people at the mall. Upon seeing a picture of the orphanage, Blake goes to visit the orphanage, and helps out after Blight almost runs his ice cream truck over Clayton (Garret Morris). Blake meets Leslie (Robin Curtis) and the last three children remaining: Taylor ([Adam Wylie]]), Sarah (Mila Kunis) and Elizabeth. He is interviewed by the news when the local papers refer to Blake/Santa as ’Santa with Muscles’. It is also revealed that Lenny owes a sum of money to both Frost and Blight, and Frost wants Lenny to get the Santa out of the orphanage, not realizing that Santa is Blake.
Blake helps out when the orphanage gets attacked by Blight and Vial, but he manages to fend off their attacks. Taylor heads off to deal with Ebner Frost at his mansion, but Blake catches him and has Lenny take him back to the orphanage. Blake asks the kids if there’s anything special about the place, and the kids mention an underground vault. They kids figured out the three combination numbers, but they have trouble with the fourth. Blake figures out the fourth number and opens the vault to reveal geode-like magical crystals. Blake stays to figure out how he knew the combination, while Lenny goes upstairs with the rest of the group.
The next morning, Blake fends off another attack from Blight and his henchmen but a decorated Santa Claus pushes him out and falls onto a garbage truck. He wakes up in his mansion, and gathers his staff to help fight back against Frost. However, they speed past Hinkley again and are given chase. They manage to outrun the police but they are stopped by other patrol cars who try to blow up Thorn's vehicle with a rocket launcher, but they end up destroying Hinkley's car instead.
He rescues the kids as well as Leslie and Clayton, the latter revealing that the once grew up in the orphanage with Ebner as his best friend until they had a falling out. They all defeat the henchmen, and Lenny helps out as well, having felt guilty about betraying the orphanage. Frost and his henchmen are arrested, but the orphanage is destroyed due to the overload of the crystals. Frost's compound is now the new orphanage founded and helped run by Blake. Many more orphans have joined since then. They all watch through a telescope at Frost and his henchman doing hard labor in the prison yard.
The film was released on 8 November 1996, the film garnered $120,932 in box office receipts during its opening weekend and grossed a total of $220,198 during its two-week run. [1]
Film critic Emanuel Levy gave the film a score of 2 out of 5. [2] Joe Leydon in Variety described Santa with Muscles as a "weakling of a comedy" and thought that Hogan's performance was lacking the charisma of his previous work such as Suburban Commando . Leydon panned the direction in particular, stating: "Working from an irredeemably bland screenplay, John Murlowski directs with all the enthusiasm of someone going through the motions to pay off a debt." [3] Chris Hicks, writing for the Deseret News , stated that films such as Santa with Muscles make films like Jingle All The Way look better, and said that Hulk Hogan "makes Arnold Schwarzenegger seem like Laurence Olivier". [4] MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher called it "a deeply awful comedy" and "Believe me, it’s even dumber than it sounds." [5]
Reception for Santa with Muscles has continued to be negative. As of December 2011 it was listed at number 62 on IMDB's bottom 100 movies. [6] It was listed as number 43 out of 50 worst children's films by Total Film , [7] and was included in Virgin Media's list of worst Christmas movies. [8] The film was also included on Atlantic City Weekly's list of worst holiday films, ranking third behind Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and the Star Wars Holiday Special . [9] Due to Hogan's starring role, the film has been featured on the website Wrestlecrap, which acts as a "Hall of Shame" for the worst gimmicks and storylines in pro wrestling history. [10] When Golden Globe nominee Mila Kunis, who made her film debut, was asked about the film in 2011 by GQ magazine, she said, "I was too young to fully understand the importance of working with Hulk Hogan. I just thought he was this huge man", while comparing the film to American Psycho 2 in which she co-starred with William Shatner. [11] In 2021, Santa with Muscles was featured on the YouTube channel RedLetterMedia as part of their series, Best of the Worst. [12]
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