When I was a kid, nothing got me and my friends more hyped up in anticipation than snow. Yep - glorious white snow. To us there were few other activities as fun as playing in the snow. One major problem however; I grew up in a country in which we only get about 3-4 days a year of significant snowfall, in which it would actually settle on the ground. So when there was a significant level of snowfall, we would make the utmost use of it. Snowball fights, sledding, making snow angels and of course making a snowman.Snowmen were a subject of my childhood fascination. Why? I'm not quite sure. They just have a certain magical appeal. Whenever I would see one in someone else's garden, I would always have to point it out, "Look, a snowman!". So when my friends and I heard about the movie Jack Frost, in which a snowman comes to life, we were psyched to see it. Although there already existed the 1982 animated short The Snowman which had a similar premise, I believe Jack Frost appealed to us more for several reasons:-It was a movie more of our generation.-It was live action and the snowman looks just like a real snowman we could have created ourselves.-But most importantly, the movie was called Jack Frost. When I was younger, whenever there was a frosty night, we would always say that Jack Frost is out tonight.So one weekend myself and one of my friends rented Jack Frost on video and we thought it was an absolute blast. However even at that age we thought there were some stupid moments, such as when Charlie is hanging over a wall of snow and he's supposed to be in danger, yet the drop itself is tiny; or during the sledge chase sequence when two kids just happen to have a snowball the size of a boulder on standby to stop Charlie and Jack. However the one aspect of the film we found to be the most unbelievable was in how Charlie had not got over his father's death one year on. The reason for this is that a friend of ours had recently lost his father to an illness, yet was back in school one week later, acting as he normally would. To us, Charlie isolating himself from his friends due to his father's death one year on seemed far fetched. Several years later, I saw Jack Frost again on TV one weekend and the following Monday in school, it seems half the class also watched it and were all raving about how much we loved it; discussing our favourite moments, talking about the scenes we found to be the funniest. Even my teacher had watched it over the weekend and called it - and I quote - "a wonderful film". Of course when the advent of the internet age come upon us, I found out Jack Frost is considered a terrible film and the critics trashed it. One of the biggest criticisms I hear against the movie being that the snowman is creepy, which even to this day I've never thought so. I think he looks cute, and looks just like a snowman the average kid would make.I'm probably the only person in the world who will give this film a serious appraisal but when I was younger it did strike a chord with us kids. I watched Jack Frost again several years ago with a more mature perspective and I still enjoyed it, with a pool of happy nostalgic memories coming flooding back. Rock on Jack Frost! Snow dad is better than no dad!

I just saw Nostlagia Critic review this movie.Like NC I will give him right that it was an alright movie.A man dies in a car accident, and comes back to visit his Family as a snowman.Some of the highlights are the snowman joining a snowball clash.At last the snowman must be taken up to the Mountains where he must say his goodbye to the Family.It's not any major Winter Holiday Classic, but worth a Watch anyway.The snowman is well made, and the locations are wonderful.There are thrills, drama and some laughs on the way.If you love drama and comedies from the 1990's go Watch this.So try your luck in Blockbuster or a flea market to find this movie.8/10

My two boys (12 & 16) and my wife and I just watched this together over the holidays. This movie deserves better treatment than it's been given by the critics and by many reviewers on this site. The characters and the character development are really pretty good, and this drives the rest of the movie. There is the required (and implied) suspension of disbelief about a snowman coming to life, but all of this is tied into father/son, husband/wife and other relationships that I personally found believable enough to care about them. They take a little time to develop these before the fantasy part begins. There are some really nice moments here, and some layers in the relationships that matter for the story. It's not a perfect or hugely important movie - I just think it's hard to find good options like this one for the whole family and I think Jack Frost hits a really nice "sweet" spot. (Double entendre works here...) I found it very entertaining but also more emotional and "real" than I expected. Great soundtrack for a family Christmas movie, too.! I would say it's a great and safe option for kids of 6 or 7 and up, and the whole family can watch with them and not be bored.

Truly bizarre WTF? plot aside, "Jack Frost" has a good cast willing to endure it for the sake of a family friendly experience for the right kind of audience who can look past the spirit of a musician/father entering the snowman outside in the yard of his wife and son. You get Michael Keaton doing voice work for the Frosty the Snowman look-a-like (there's even a funny moment where his son comes across the Frosty Christmas special on the tube much to Keaton's chagrin), but at least he had a chance to get in a good forty minutes work in his own skin as a dad struggling to get his Jack Frost Band (his name is actually, really Jack Frost!) a music deal after a lot of neglect to his boy. His son and wife have tolerated his missing the big goal in the little league hockey game and the snowball fights with the neighborhood bullies, so in the form of Frosty, Jack tries to make up for lost time. What does come out of the weird plot is the "dad gets a second chance to be there for his son in a winter bonding missed while in human form" and the leads do what they can to make it work. The snowball fight with the bullies as Jack comes to his son's aid, and the subsequent sledding escape from those snowboarding pricks could be perceived as highlights if they weren't so strange (I had a hard time suspending disbelief as Jack the Snowman uses his stick arms and muffin hands to hurl snowballs at an accelerating rate, and "skinnied" after squeezing between two close trees (and snowboarding when the sled splits in two for that matter)). When Jack and his son get away for one last adventure and Kelly Preston (as the mom) hears her husband's voice across the phone when he calls from their cabin, it is a really emotional moment that is actually poignant…give it to the cast to really take their parts seriously even though the plot is so ridiculously absurd. One scene has Jack the Snowman melting while watching his son playing hockey that, again, is kind of surreal but makes sense considering how the father was often absent when his boy wanted him there so badly. I think for many it will take a hell of a lot to shake the premise, but maybe if you can, then "Jack Frost" might just be an agreeable bit of whimsy that seems best watched during the Holidays.