‘Hot Frosty’ review: Abominable snow movie
movie review
hot snowy
Running time: 92 minutes. Rated: TV-PG. on netflix.
After coming to life, the sexy snowman from Netflix’s “Hot Frosty” can laugh and play just like you and me — except a million times silly.
Named Jack (Dustin Milligan from “Shits Creek”), this holiday rom-com features doofus Buddy the Elf as an astrophysicist.
Our own geniuses go on extended vacations while the icy goofy hunk bakes pizzas, gets a makeover, and attends an upstate New York high-school dance with decidedly complicated choreography.
Before I say this nonsense, I will grant that this is a clever marketing ploy by the streamer. In summary, “Frosty the Snowman” with abs makes for a hilarious speaker And the title sounds like a 1998 porn VHS. “Hot Frosty” is generating more buzz than “Gladiator II” — and was Netflix’s most-watched movie of the week.
But, wow Humbug, the original film directed by Jerry Ciccoritti is nowhere near as funny or steamy as its cheeky premise would suggest. No bow-chika-wah-wah here. Nor is there much humor. It’s as healthy as hopscotch. The treacly trifle is just the same Hallmark-inspired Christmas white noise for those who defend these terrible, sappy movies as chicken soup for couch potato souls.
Cathy (Lacey Chabert) has already bumped into Jack while he’s still an inanimate object at a snow sculpting contest in fictional Hope Springs, NY. Unreasonably well-made, he is Michael Angelo David the Snowman.
“You’ve been doing your pushups,” he coos at the literally chiseled Adonis.
Flirting with Flex, Cathy accidentally enchants the statue with her magical scarf, and by morning, he is flesh and blood. And hopelessly empty.
Goofy Jack declares, “I love to talk! It’s amazing!”
He then excitedly explains to a shocked Cathy, an overworked diner owner, what happened: “I’m made of snow, and now I’m not snow! Can you believe it?!”
At first, he can’t. “He’s a grifter for amnesia,” the skeptic insists to his doctor friend Dottie.
All the while, Jack, originally a golden retriever, keeps telling a confused Cathy, “I love you!”
But not everyone loves him. On day one, Mr. Freeze is already Fudge’s enemy. Jack stole some clothes — sorry, ladies! — from a local store, and shout, “Tough on crime!” The sheriff and his deputies work to find the culprit.
Cathy, who holds a special place in her heart for attractive idiots with the IQ of a carrot nose, rescues Jack in his crumbling home.
He delivers ho-hum, fish-out-of-water gags while playing a fixer-upper. “What is it?!” Jack said about the remote control. After Snooze is spooked by a horror program on TV, he sneaks into the basement for vampires.
Each new idea is worse than the last. And there’s nothing particularly snowman-y about Jack, but he can’t get too hot or he’ll die, and he eats ice cubes for breakfast.
The pair grow closer and a romance begins to blossom, which is strange because Jack has the mind of a child. And vulnerable Kathy is a widow whose husband has recently died.
“What’s cancer?”, wide-eyed Jack asks in a restless moment.
“It’s not a nice thing that happens to some people,” Cathy replied.
At the end of the movie, he kisses this idiot.
The town also begins to fall for him – especially the lascivious local women who are surprised to see him doing shirtless outdoor activities.
After a drooling ogler shoves his car off the road, Jack says the only purposefully funny line in the entire movie: “I wanna push you behind?”
The sleeper break in “Hot Frosty” is Jack helping out at the local school dance, because they’re apparently short on teachers. Work closely with our children, you unranked strangers!
The emotional ending, where the town had to come together to free Jack from prison, left me completely cold. That’s good for Jack, bad for Christmas romantic comedies.
Netflix’s tagline for this schlock is “It takes a snowman to melt her heart.”
Yes, and my brain.