After Santa 'Nick' Claus--Code Name: RED ONE (J. K. Simmons)--is kidnapped a witch named Gryla (Kiernan Shipka), the North Pole's Head of Security, Callum Drift (Dwayne Jonson) must team up with his director Zoe (Lucy Liu) and the world's most infamous bounty hunter or tracker, Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas. Considering that Jack is a definite skeptic of the whole Santa Claus thing, this mission is going to take some convincing by Callum and Zoe to get him to acquiesce since time is of the essence.
Others to round out the cast are Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. Claus, Kristofer Hivju as Krampas, Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Olivia, Wesley Kimmel as Dylan, Nick Kroll as Ted, Wyatt Hunt as young Jack and Marc Evan Jackson as Uncle Rick.
This was uproariously directed by Jake Kasdan ("Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" '07, "Bad Teacher" '11, "Spring/Fall" (TV movie) '11, "Sex Tape" '14, "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" '17, "Jumanji: The Next Level" '19) plus TV and a short. By his very resume, it was evident that Kasdan was simply within his comfort zone and we are the positive recipients of his talent. This had just the right amount of action, humor, drama, and great visuals to truly enjoy this film. His sequencing was spot on which made the story incredibly fluid. And all the cast were believable in their respective roles. It was equally well written by seasoned Chris Morgan ("Cellular" '04, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" '06, "Wanted" '08, "Connected" '08, "Fast & Furious" '09, "Fast Five" '11, "Fast & Furious 6" '13, "47 Ronin" '13, "Furious 7" '15, "The Fate of the Furious" '17, "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw" '19, "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" '23) plus TV and a short, based on a story by Hiram Garcia. Obviously this is an updated version of the whole Santa Claus legend replete with high tech equipment, computer generated graphics, and almost done in a military style all with wit and a ton of action. Obviously this is basically the 'Fast & Furious' writer which certainly allowed to be more adept at penning this screenplay. I must say, the cinematography by Dan Mindel asc/bsc was amazing in that as the action scenes unfolded, the way the camera followed the sleigh as though you were on the sleigh itself, was a stroke of genius. And the visual effects predominantly designed by SPI (Sony Pictures Imageworks) and Rodeo VFX were seamless and certainly added hugely to the story.
If you're into 'Santa Claus' films, this will do well for you. It has wit, action and light drama all with a great message of looking within and attempt to reconnect with those that one might have issues with--definitely heartwarming. It should go down in film history as a holiday classic like so many others. You be the judge.
Out of 4 Stars: 4 Rated: PG-13 123mins.
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