Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticNot so long ago, there were three or four new Christmas movies a year. Now it seems like there are 30 or 40, and if you’re wondering how that assembly line of holiday product gets filled, the answer is: by recycling endless variations on the same yuletide fairy-tale kitsch and we’re-all-one-big-nettlesome-Christmas-family glorified-sitcom cheer.Take “The Christmas Chronicles 2.” Directed by Chris Columbus, with his leftover-’80s synthetic-is-the-new-real life’s-a-snow-globe touch, it’s a movie in which Santa Claus, played with winning macho bluster by Kurt Russell, has to save Christmas from the depredations of an angry fallen elf.
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