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Friday, January 31, 2020

KLAUS (2019)

Well-received*, Oscar nom’d, deeply disappointing. Animator Sergio Pablos’ directing debut is a Santa ‘Klaus’ origin story, told from the POV of a slacker Prince of Postmasters. The young man, exiled by Dad to a dank, dark, frozen little town on an isolated island up North, is tasked with convincing the feuding inhabitants to increase their postal usage. Naturally, there’s a sad old gent, widowed & childless, who hoards a stash of toys for the family he never had. And for romance? The obligatory local frenemy, a disappointed schoolmarm turned fishmonger. Wha? (This really is the story, folks.) Tarted up with mismatched stylization in characters & architecture; played at a pace fit for an ADHD convention; heck, even the voice acting comes up short of the mark. Things settle down for much of the last act, though the climax is a frenetic mess, with sentiment working a bit better than logic. But any pleasures are fleeting.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with the classic Dr. Seuss/Chuck Jones half-hour animated GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS/’66 which this liberally lifts from.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Just how ‘well-received’ something of a mystery since these NetFlix films get, at best, a token theatrical release with actual viewing numbers kept an ‘in-house’ secret.

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