This is not destined to be a holiday classic and may not even make it to Thanksgiving. This is an improbable, convoluted over-effects fest with a naughty rambling storyline. Director Jake Kasdan (Jumanji films) and writer Chris Morgan (Fast and Furious films) with a story by Hiram Garcia put their heads together and came up with a Christmas lump of coal, despite the A-list cast.
J.K.Simmons is Santa, first seen going undercover as a regular shopping mall Jolly Old Elf, belying his real persona as the CEO-Santa of a huge, techno-centric North Pole gift dispensing compound. He’s all business down to his ultra-intense physical work-out routine to prepare for the big night Christmas Eve. Santa burns 430 million calories delivering the goods on his big night. His safety is stridently over-seen by Santa’s faithful long-time chief of ELF (Enforcement Logistics and Fortification, get it?) Cal, (Dwayne Johnson). This jacked-elf who never cracks a smile has been on the job for 542 years and he’s ready to retire because he’s lost faith in the goodness of people.
When Santa suddenly goes missing, Cal snaps into action, working in tandem with another dour-faced security official, Lucy Liu as Cal’s boss. Liu’s best chance to find Santa and save Christmas is through Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), the Scrooge of this story. He’s been on Santa’s Naughty List his whole life. Jack’s small time, smart-ass criminal with a bad gambling habit. He ignores the only good part of his life, his son, Dylan (Wesley Kimmel). Jack never shows up for anything. His one talent is as a human blood hound. He can find anyone. He even, inadvertently, helps the evil organization that wants to steal Santa and ruin Christmas.
Here’s where the story really falls off the sleigh. The trail takes Cal and Jack to Aruba where they encounter Ted (Nick Kroll) to find out who took Santa, code name, Red One. A fight ensues with the first of many creepy CG generated monsters, ogres and trolls. Battling giant snowmen on the beach who don’t melt is ridiculous. Ted divulges the identity of Santa’s kidnapper. Gryla (Kiernan Shipka) the shapeshifting evil Witch always grimacing in closeups, wants to punish all on the naughty list imprisoning them in their own personal snow globes.
Next stop is Krampu (Kristofer Hivjus). Jack and Cal take him on in a massive fight scene in the dark underworld to get to Gryla. Krampus looks like a second string, retread from Beauty and the Beast, with plenty anger issues and magical power.One of Cal’s magic powers is the ability to turn any small model of any toy into a life size machine. He can also miniaturize himself.
It just takes too long for the script to set up the whole stupid premise of finding Santa so he can complete his annual Christmas mission pulled by huge, grotesque animated reindeer. And what happened to Rudolph? It’s a pretty convoluted, solemn story. The final battle with Gryla is staged in yet another dark castle inhabited by more CG characters that look like they just left the Star Wars Cantina. Among the characters lost in this film is Mrs. Claus, (Bonnie Hunt). Good to see Hunt back, but she is so underused. The kids will like all the action, but Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans fail to establish much chemistry in this sour holiday tale. As it turns out, J.K. Simmons gets a lucky break. He gets to sleep through most of this fantasy.
Amazon MGM Studios 2 Hours 2 Minutes PG-13
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