Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

My parents and I checked out another Christmas movie that was released exclusively to Disney+. We saw ‘Dashing Through the Snow’, a Christmas fantasy comedy film directed by Tim Story. Tim Story is a name I’ve come across before, as he directed the 2005 and 2007 ‘Fantastic Four’ live-action films. 🙂

He also directed the 2021 live-action ‘Tom & Jerry’ film. It was good to check out Tim Story’s take on Christmas in ‘Dashing Through the Snow’, especially on Disney+. The film’s script is by Scott Rosenberg, who also worked on the latest 2017 and 2019 ‘Jumanji’ films and the 2018 ‘Venom’ film.

‘Dashing Through the Snow’ is about Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges as Eddie Garrick, a divorced social worker for the Atlanta police department. He despises Christmas due to a painful childhood memory. I’m glad Eddie isn’t like a modern-day Scrooge, as he’s likeable with well-meaning issues. 🙂

Eddie gets sent out on a call to his next-door neighbour’s house whilst spending Christmas Eve with his daughter – Madison Skye Validum as Charlotte. He meets a man who helps him to understand the joy and magic of Christmas. That man happens to be Lil Rel Howery as Nick, dressed up as Santa.

And it turns out that Nick is Santa. It was intriguing to check out ‘Dashing Through the Snow’ as a Christmas film, as it presents to us the notion of a black man being Santa Claus compared to the traditional, white-bearded white-man Santa we’re accustomed to. I enjoyed this notion in the film. 🙂

Over the years, we’ve been presented with variations of Santa at Christmas time, especially in Disney films such as ‘The Santa Clause’ films, ‘The Santa Paws’ films and ‘Noelle’. In ‘Noelle’, we’re presented with the notion that a woman can be Santa Claus as much as a man can be the festive figure. 🙂

To see a black man being Santa Claus for a change is quite refreshing. By the way, speaking as a ‘Doctor Who’ fan, it’s ironic that we’ve had a woman play the Doctor and we’re about to have a black man play the Doctor, matching to the many interpretations of Santa Claus presented in films. 🙂

Whilst helping Nick, Eddie and his daughter Charlotte get caught up in the wrath of Oscar Nunez as Conrad Harf, a local politician who’s planning to do something terrible to a shelter and he wants his android tablet back. Apparently, there was a mix-up between tablets belonging to Nick and Nunez.

The film’s cast also includes Teyonah Parris as Allison Garrick, Eddie’s ex-wife and Charlotte’s mother. I’ve seen Teyonah Parris recently as Monica Rambeau in ‘The Marvels’ and she’s also been in ‘WandaVision’. It was very nice to see her in this Christmas film, even if she had a small amount of screentime.

There’s the Truckles family, including Gina Brillon as Sonya, Sebastian Sozzi as Martin, Gaby Rosario as Kayleigh and Noah Ayden Hernandez as Diego. The Truckles, as a family, are obsessed with finding Santa Claus and they use their equipment to track down Nick with Eddie and Charlotte in the film. 🙂

Oscar Nunez has three minions – Ravi Patel as Peter, Marcus Lewis as Paul and Mary Lynn Rajskub as Mary. Marcus Lewis has done stuntwork and acting for films like ‘Black Panther’, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and ‘Black Adam’. He looked quite familiar whilst watching him in this film.

There’s also Michael H. Cole as Moke, Kayte Giralt as Ginny, Vince Pisani as Luther and David Shae as Detective Bobby Carlotta. Not that I’ve seen a lot of Tim Story’s film works, but I guess a lot of actors who’ve appeared in ‘Dashing Through the Snow’ have worked with Tim Story before on other film projects.

‘Dashing Through the Snow’ has been great to check out on Disney+. It’s nice to see another film directed by Tim Story, following the ‘Fantastic Four’ films and the 2021 ‘Tom & Jerry’ film. I also liked the story of a Santa Claus played by a black man helping a divorced man to love Christmas again.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂