WITH less than 30 shopping days to Christmas, you can get into the festive spirit that little bit sooner this year with The Santa Clause 2.

Michael Lembeck's wintry comedy is a shamelessly sentimental yet enjoyably daft sequel to the 1994 Disney smash hit headlining Tim Allen. Originality and subtlety aren't the film's strong points, but the wholesome moralising - dare to dream, put your family ahead of everything else - warms the soul like a glass of freshly-brewed egg-nog.

The Santa Clause 2 takes place eight years after the original.

Operations at the North Pole are running smoothly, and the elves, led by chief toymaker Bernard (David Krumholtz), have fallen in love with the new owner of the Santa suit, Scott Calvin (Allen).

Unfortunately, Scott is facing a dilemma - his teenage son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd), has just been placed on this year's naughty list for daubing graffiti on school property. Scott's ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson) and her new husband Neil (Judge Reinhold), who have raised Charlie, cannot seem to get through to the boy.

Charlie desperately needs guidance from his dear dad, but Scott is needed at the North Pole to ensure all presents are ready and wrapped by Christmas Eve. Torn between his responsibilities as the icon of Christmas and as a loving parent, Scott eventually decides to travel back home to spend some quality time with his boy, leaving a mechanised Santa clone in charge, with predictably comical and disastrous consequences.

Scott soon learns that he can't travel back to the North Pole to resume his Santa duties unless he finds a lovely new wife within 28 days - enter his son's feisty and sexy headmistress Principal Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell).

A cheap and cheery Christmas cracker.