Last season I reviewed Snow and gave it a 3 of 5 Flying Reindeer.

This year, I watched the sequel, ABC Family’s Snow 2: Brain Freeze, 2008, also written by Rich Burns.

Sequels often don’t live up to their originals. As the film opened, I wondered if this would be the case.

Nick Snowden, aka Santa, notices just a few days before Christmas that the reindeer have put on weight and will be unable to get off the ground to fly the sleigh on Christmas Eve. He blames Sandy, his still newlywed wife, for over-indulging them, and uses his magical mirror abilities to transport himself to a big city gym to get tips for them to lose weight.

As he worries too much about getting it all right on the big day, he unwittingly shuts out Sandy, who stews over the two of them not being able to have a Christmas of their own, plus she has something she wants to tell him.

Their lack of communications leads to a spat, and he goes through the mirror portal. This time he arrives in the garage of an old friend of his parents, but before he gets his bearings, a falling item jostled by his arrival conks him on the head, and he suffers a total memory loss.

This opens the door (and the mirror too) for all sorts of hi-jinx to abound.

The main three actors from the original movie are back again which preserves the continuity from the original.

Though the initial scenes worried me a bit with slapstick sequences that seemed a bit overdone, and a premise that seemed a bit contrived, by midway I was all in – I wanted to know the final outcome and how it would be brought about.  All the loose ends wrapped up sweetly, and Tom Cavanagh’s Santa did not disappoint. I especially appreciated the way he used so many Christmas euphemisms while suffering from memory loss

The magic book and its keeper were a treat, as well.

This sequel is as good as its original and earns 3 of 5 Magical Mirrors. ♥♥♥

Santa can use any mirror.