Klaus (2019)

Spanish animator Sergio Pablos cut his teeth in the Disney stable and then hit it big on the Despicable Me franchise. He wrote the first film and the success of that series has lead to him starting his own animation studio, and his debut is Klaus, a highly stylized, slapstick inspired Christmas tale which has swept the award season after it's debut. This "origin story" of Santa, which throws out all our preconceptions of Santa's background and comes up with a fairly original idea, has that Christmas special feel, which I mean in no pejorative way at all, but as the sort of spirit it embodies.

Klaus ends up being rather charming if it does fall a little too far on the silly and predictable side for me. Despite lusher, more textured visuals, you'll notice the absurdity bent familiar from the Despicable movies.  But despite the film coming up with a very different version of Santa than we're used to seeing, it ends up being a rather formulaic. But is a weird mix because along with being fairly predictable it also is a little nonsensical. the story hinges on some motivations which  aren't necessarily logical. Without giving us a good reason, the villains of the story are hell bent on maintaining a feud and so a rather constructed feeling conflict and climax. All of which adds to the silliness of the story and takes away from its potential as a holiday classic.

So for me Klaus was a mixed bag (no pun intended). I enjoyed the visuals and character design, I thought the story was a bit light but just enjoyable enough, but the whole thing was a little too foolish for my preferences, the humour rarely catching for me. The advantage of a holiday themed story is that we tend to be drawn back to them each season. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't likely rewatch this film. But perhaps I'll give it another shot next year as the yule tide approaches.

Klaus
Starring: Jason Schwartzman, J.K. Simmons, Rashida Jones, Will Sasso, Sergio Pablos, Norm Macdonald, Joan Cusack
Director: Sergio Pablos
Writers: Jim Mahoney, Zach Lewis, Sergio Pablos