Overview
After Santa Claus (codename: Red One) is kidnapped, the North Pole's Head of Security must team up with the world's most infamous bounty hunter in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.
Callum Drift, the head of the North Pole security known as ELF (Enforcement Logistics and Fortification) has been losing his spirit in recent years, and is planning to retire after this year’s run of present giving is over. However, when Santa (JK Simmons) is abducted by a black ops team led by someone who wants to twist the festive season to punish the bad (no, not Krampus…although he pops up later in the film), the clandestine MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) buddy Callum up with a mercenary hacker, Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) to find Saint Nick and bring him back before the big day. Cue action, festive fun, and typical buddy-cop styled banter.
Coming from Jake Kasdan, whose back catalogue is pretty impressive with Orange County, Bad Teacher, Walk Hard, and the recent Jumanji films under his belt, I had some hope for this. JK Simmons as Santa was inspired, and Evans is clearly having fun in his film choices since exiting the MCU. However, there is a big Rock sized problem in here, with Johnson just playing yet another version of the same character he has been churning out constantly for the past decade and a half, and you know what, I’m getting a little tired of his schtick. In addition, this was a film that was intended for streaming release on Prime, which switched up to grab some of that festive cash at the box office, and it shows!
It is fair to say that streaming action films always seem to have a certain visual style to them, and this suffers as a result. The effects work (and there’s a lot of it, from the reindeer, to the mythological settings, to the creatures and beasts on display) looks unfinished and coated with that typical sheen of blur that streaming movies tend to have. Such cheaper looking elements are passable when watched on a home system, but when stretched over 30ft or more of screen, they jar. Comparing the look of this with, say, Jumanji only highlights the cheap, throwaway nature of this film even more.
Look, there are some fun moments to be had. Simmons is a great Santa, even if he spends most of the film asleep (something I envied him for), and Evans is likably rogue, whilst Kiernan Shipka (of Sabrina fame) gets chance to play pantomime villain, and does it so well. The Krampus scenes were fun, and I did like some of the ideas this film presented about the mythological world and how they are all monitored. But that’s about it. It’s pretty safe family action adventure, and no doubt will be sufficient to amuse the family closer to Christmas, when it seems people will watch any old tosh so long as it has snow and jingle bells, but inevitably this will be swiftly forgotten, and unlikely to become a regular feature on people’s festive revisit cycle.
Most of all it is disappointing that Road House earlier this year was dumped to streaming when it was clearly planned for the big screen, whilst this streaming tosh was boosted to the cinemas. Ho ho hold out for something better to watch, people!