Jack Frost

Jack Frost is a slickly packaged and engagingly sentimental fantasy-comedy that stands out as one of the season's most pleasant surprises. Pic offers a shrewdly balanced mix of humor, high concept and heart tugging, along with some amusingly impressive special effects. Read full review

Jack Frost is loads of fun, with a warm, fuzzy message, a rare live-action movie that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. [11 Dec 1998, p.12]

Jack Frost starts out with sweet promise, then loses steam and gets a little too strange for its own good. It also gets cloyingly manipulative, but its heart is in the right place. Read full review

Parents should find the warm-and-fuzzy sentiments of the movie tolerable, mostly thanks to the reliable star, Michael Keaton. [11 Dec 1998, p.C3]

A watchable, if by-the-book little movie. Read full review

Director Troy Miller, making his feature debut, does a decent job with schmaltzy material. Read full review

The most amazing thing about Jack Frost may be that it took four writers to come up with a film as insubstantial as tinsel and as leaden as fruitcake. Then again, perhaps none of the writers wanted to bear the blame alone. [12 Dec 1998, p.C4]

The writers, and director Miller, an MTV veteran making his feature debut, are never able to mesh the film's contradictory tones. [11 Dec 1998, p.F14]

If I had to guess, I'd say that the big white "snow" thing is a flimsy combination of cheap plaster, recycled Styrofoam and some poor soul's false hopes. Pretty much like the movie itself. [11 Dec 1998, p.22]

Jack Frost can't possibly straddle its emotional shifts between morbidity and sheer nonsense. [11 Dec 1998]

Younger children who might buy into the fantasy are not of an age where they will recognize the family conflicts that Jack Frost is trying to raise and resolve. As the film serves up slapstick, chases and empty-headed seriousness, don't be surprised by their puzzled expressions. After all, a profoundly puzzled expression is what should have greeted the idea of Jack Frost when it was broached. [11 Dec 1998, p.03]

The story is rarely as touching or funny as it wants to be, but children may enjoy the fantasy elements. [24 Dec 1998]

An odd mix of special effects, cartoonish adventure and father-son bonding isn't very funny or poignant. [20 Dec 1998, p.C9]

Kids might think the snowman is cool, and some adults might be mildly amused by some of what transpires, but, on the whole, Jack Frost is far too superficial to be affecting, and its facile resolution to the loss of a parent borders on insulting. This is the kind of film that will leave most viewers cold. Read full review

Jack Frost is so sugarcoated that it makes other recent efforts in this genre look blisteringly honest. On the other hand, it's just cheerful and bogus enough to keep children reasonably entertained. Read full review

The snowman's a bland shuffling blob (from Jim Henson's Creature Shop) with two expressions, an all-purpose smile and a vague look of resignation. Read full review

Begun by screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson (Grumpy Old Men), Jack Frost ended up taking four credited writers to finish - and still it's a derivative mess. [11 Dec 1998]

The movie's opening half-hour is merely dull, but the final hour is brain-damaging. [11 Dec 1998]

The story of a dead man (Keaton) who comes back to life as a snowman to befriend his troubled son (Cross) is played for laughs and tears despite its very creepy undertones. [11 Dec 1998, p.31]

Jack Frost is so treacly and fake it makes you feel like you’re trapped in a winter-wonderland paperweight. Read full review

Jack Frost's juxtaposition of the absurd and the absurdly predictable results in a film that's frequently entertaining, but for the wrong reasons. Read full review

Crass, dumbed down and stickily sentimental, it's a flavorless confection that clearly had too many chefs tugging at the taffy. Read full review

The cloying odor of therapy hangs over this preachy holiday fable about a boy whose neglectful dad dies and comes back as a snowman. Read full review

Jack Frost is the kind of movie that makes you want to take the temperature, if not feel for the pulse, of the filmmakers. Read full review

Be it the use of faux snow that looks like the dog ends of previously owned Q-Tips or the successively worse series of blue-screened visuals, the film is shoddy from frame one. Read full review