THE SEARCH FOR SANTA PAWS
Release date: November 23, 2010

The Search For Santa Paws is wonderfully charming musical Christmas tale, that’s quite fetching for the whole family. That line sounds so cliché, but my whole family really enjoyed this movie and I was pleasantly surprised.

There are so many reasons I did not have high ho ho hopes for this film. For one thing, it’s direct-to-video, and traditionally direct-to-video DVDs are not the quality of theatrical releases. Then there’s the fact that it’s about the nineteen millionth sequel which started with Air Bud and gave birth to the Buddies releases such Snow Buddies, Space Buddies and last year’s Santa Buddies, where we first saw the character of Santa Paws. In general, if it’s not a Pixar release, sequels never live up to the success of its predecessor. Finally, while the Buddies movies were certainly family friendly and cute, I always felt they were geared toward the younger audience.

Having said all that, The Search For Santa Paws is in a breed of its own. Technically, it’s not a sequel, but a prequel to Santa Buddies, and it takes place before the Buddies were in the picture. Therefore, the storyline doesn’t focus as much on talking dogs as simply, concentrating more on the "heart" of the story.

The great casting enormously contributes to my delight with this film. A good story is nothing without the right performers. The storyline daringly brings a very human aspect to Santa Claus (Richard Riehle), rather than portraying him as a more typical always jolly old soul. But the real joy for me was watching the youngsters, who are brilliant performers. Madison Pettis has already appeared in a number of films including Disney’s The Game Plan with Dwayne Johnson and was a regular in the Disney Channel series Cory in the House and gives a heartwarming performance as the misfortunate orphan Will. Her new friend in the orphanage, Quinn portrayed equally as emotionally by Kaitlyn Maher. I first saw Kaitlyn as a contestant on America’s Got Talent. An adorable waif, she captured the hearts of America with her singing, and in this film she’s proven her ability as a bona fide actress caliber of Shirley Temple in my opinion.

The BONUS FEATURES include:

For fans of the Buddies, THE HUCKLEBUCKLE HERO (6:53) brings them back to narrate a story set to images of a pop-up storybook.

The obligatory music video features Debby Ryan of Suite Life on Deck, performing "Deck the Halls", and helping prove that every Disney Channel star, can indeed sing.

SING-ALONG MODE puts karaoke-style lyrics on the screen during the musical numbers when you watch the film.

Finally there’s OFF THE CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR (11:49) which has some interesting deleted scenes, which were not yet complete for production, such as seeing the dogs without their mouths moving.

Hope this helps you know what’s on The Search For Santa Paws blu-ray and DVD. As you can tell, I really enjoyed it, no bones about it!