World-renowned tracker Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans) is hired by Santa Claus's director of security, Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), to seek down the abducted Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons). Will Jack be able to find enough Christmas spirit to assist, though, considering he is a regular on the naughty list?
When a brand-new Santa Claus film is hailed as a "four-quadrant" "tentpole" with "multiple ancillaries" and franchise potential, it's difficult to celebrate Christmas every day. This Dwayne Johnson vehicle occasionally seems to justify skepticism, which is positively demanded by such an attitude. Even with the focus-group goals that appear to have dictated the picture elsewhere, Jake "Jumanji" Kasdan is a competent enough filmmaker to locate some heart and some humor.
In order to show that Jack O'Malley (Wyatt Hunt, subsequently Chris Evans) has always been extremely pessimistic but that life hasn't always been easy, we begin with a rather meaningless scene-setting for a young Jack. He is then shown to us as an adult, carelessly stirring up trouble and robbing others to fund a gambling addiction and a life that has been wasted. Across town, Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) and his heavy, Cal (Dwayne Johnson), are going to a mall to get some exercise before Christmas. After that, he is led back to a US Air Force installation, where his reindeer await his return. He gets abducted there, though, and Cal and Jack have to work together to track him down and save him—yes, Christmas.
Both the "save Christmas" part and the mismatched heroes—one schlubby, one strait-laced—are cliched from a million films. Evans is playing the same complete schmuck he has been picking since leaving the MCU, while Johnson is essentially Hobbs with magic gadgets. Neither is new, but they both know what they're doing. For Chris Morgan's writing, Simmons is better, playing a warmer note than usual, but Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, and Bonnie Hunt are all confined to one-note, unappreciated characters. With more work to do, Kristofer Hivju's Krampus is probably the most probable contender for the next "ancillary" spin-off.
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Here are a few enjoyable moments: While some angry snowmen on a beach are a lovely touch (even if the backdrop is merely an excuse for some sexy bikinis), The Rock gets a smart battle move we haven't seen from him before. The two main characters' mirrored arcs—one as a man who has lost trust in humans, the other as a man who never believed in Christmas—are presented beautifully, but a lot of the rest seems to have been designed into oblivion: an action sequence here, a tidbit of mythology there. Father Christmas's militarism is completely out of place, and the movie's high-tech depiction of the North Pole has been overdone, most notably in Disney's Prep and Landing and Arthur Christmas. Why does it resemble Aquaman's Atlantis, too? And why is there a penguin on the staff?
The last generation of genuinely iconic Christmas films dates back to 2003, despite the fact that there are a ton of new ones released every year. However, you still need to approach them with sincere friendliness in your heart, not with fantasies of a shared holiday universe and focus-group ratings. This might have been something if the bombast had been restrained and the characters had been the main emphasis. As it is, it's a ridiculously large box for so little joy.
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