Jack Frost (1998)

Directed by Troy Miller
Written by Steven Bloom, Jeff Cesario, Mark Steven Johnson & Jonathan Roberts
Starring Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Mark Addy, Henry Rollins, Joseph Cross

My Advice: Wait for Cable.

A film that reads like four screenwriters had their hands in the pie (and guess what?), it will no doubt appeal to eight-year-olds, but anyone older than that can pretty much be prepared to get to know their watchface very well.

Jack Frost (Keaton) has it all, great kid (Cross), beautiful wife (Preston), and a blues band on the cusp of making it big.  Like most musicians, though, he's flaky, and he's making his wife and son nuts with breaking promises.  Again, it's not spoiler-material if it's already in the trailer, so he dies.  And comes back as a snowman because his son misses him. 

Sound goofball?  Well, it is a little.  This was supposed to be the live action Frosty the Snowman movie originally.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to hear some of the freshest most intelligent dialogue I've heard in some time.  Not only that, but the setup of a playground snowball fight as a battlefield was inspired.  But--and there's always that but--the movie gradually spirals into both illogical leaps (the bad kids produce two boulder-sized snowballs out of nowhere and roll it at our heroes) and sentimental mishmash (a speech about love and second chances--pick any five).  By the ending tearjerk, what could have actually been a decent film that rose above its subject matter instead panders to the lowest common denominator of sappy kids movies.  Only the aforementioned dialogue, Mark Addy (who plays Keaton's keyboardist), and Henry Rollins as an overly-hyped hockey coach make the film worth watching.