VividSimon Simply Perfect

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

J. This movie is excellent. All the actors are great and clearly know what they're doing, even the kids, and the scenes, mostly shot in Lapland, look very great. And the dialogue, while not the best imaginable, is quite decent. I can't believe I hadn't seen this great film before! So the movie begins with young Nikolas (later Santa), whose parents and little sister Aada die in an accident quite predictable but still sad. Since his parents died, the six families in the village decide to take care of him, each for a year, until after six years a famine strikes and they can't take care of an extra mouth anymore. So this lonely and grumpy carpenter called Iisakki takes Nikolas and, after at first being very rude towards him, raises him as his own son. Each Christmas, they together give gifts to the children in the village, and thus a tradition has begun...This movie is, as I already told, very good, and I'm sure this will some day become a classic.

dwwebtv I liked this movie having seen it in the English dubbed version. I was not aware of any of the actors so the for-mentioned appearance of a Finnish Pop Star (Antti Tuisku) wasn't something I was looking for and felt the character blended in well as it was kept short.For those that mention this Santa version vs the USA version, I have only one thing to say....The North Pole is in Canada, not the USA. And I think the Finnish version did a nice job of giving Santa (of any version) that classic look of what he may have seemed like in the beginning. For reference purposes the USA/Canadian version of Santa was created by the Coca Cola company for advertisement purposes and was never meant to become the North American standard version.The movie to me was sad, funny and thoughtful. I thought it went a long way to give a classic children's myth a realistic beginning. My three daughters (21, 18 & 13) watched this with me and all loved it. The only complaint was the dubbing. They had never seen a foreign movie before and assumed no matter where it was made the lips should match the English words......kids.I gave this movie a high rating based on what I saw. I don't look at the cinematography or pay much attention to musical scores. I watch a movie and it either resonates with me or it doesn't and this one did.My only regret is that I don't speak Finnish so I could judge the difference between the acting and hearing the characters as they were written as opposed to the overdub.

HeedZ This movie has a lot more depth than most Santa movies from the big US of A. This becomes a major commercial problem for the movie since many people like to see shallow movies that are "heart warming" even though it smells fake long way, and prefer to place their dollars in such movies instead. This is not the issue with Joulutarina. The movie has dark sides, let's face it all tales have dark sides, the matter is if you present them or not. This is a REAL movie. Heartwarming, beautiful scenery and good acting.If you want to see the real thing - go watch this movie.By the way, the kids (8 and 12) absolutely ADORED it. I've lost count on how many times they have seen this already.SEE IT!

pmvike415 I actually got to see this movie for the first time in Rome, Italy this past October during a film festival. Before that, I had never heard of this movie, let alone that they were dubbing a version in English. I got to meet the director who was very nice. He talked about all the things that a beginning filmmaker should never do, including working in bad weather, working with children, special effects, and animals, all of which were done for this movie. Shot on location in the dead of winter, with real reindeer, this is a pretty impressive piece of work. It's also a great movie to add to the collection of other Christmas films. I can't predict whether it will become a Christmas classic, but I can say that I liked the back story given to Santa Claus in this movie.