The rock is back and this time hes.. oh wait hes another character that is big and a fighter of sorts, but this time.. its Christmas. The rock is back playing the head of E.L.F. the security force in charge of protecting the real santa clause. Yup you read that right he is in a Christmas movie, usually reserved for the place actors go when they cant get another other gig.. but this time its more of the big ticket movie than the tv movie and the effects in this one show that fact.
The story is pretty simple really as family movies go, Santa is doing the rounds of the shopping malls as he runs up to the magically christmas night where he has to single handedly deliver presents accross the globe. After returning safely, escorted apparently by the US Airforce, to the secret cloaked home at the north pole. He enters a heart to heart with his head of security Callum (Dwayne Johnson) that there are just too many people ending up on the naughty list in the current day and age.. that this is the worst its been in hundreds of years. A moral to the story indeed. After this they go their ways and we see Callum wander the town, showing off the CGI skills of a couple of companies, and they really did go to town on this, the smile on the animators face must have been as broad as a river when they got this commission. Anyway, after a bit of a wander and a reminis of the old times, callum notices something amis with the main building only to find out they have been breached and santa… shock.. is missing.
Who can save the day, well enter Jack O’Mailley (Chris Evans, retired captain america) a down on his luck tracker who helped someone he shouldnt have and ended up as a level 4 on the naughty list. He is abducted from the everyday non believer life by MOIRA the mistical police headed by the ever wonderful Lucy Lui, in what has to be one of her sillier roles but she pulls off so well. After the usual introduction to the world that sants inhabits, by being scared by a talking polar bar and a real headless horseman he agrees, reluctantly to aid in the recovery of santa. Who could have taken him.
Jack leads callum to a remote island via what it turns out is a secret travel network of portals, we shall leave you to see where they are supposed to be hidden its fun, where they find their first clue. After this the action kicks off, we have attacking snowmen, krampus folk lore and an evil witch. This all culminates after an hour and half, in the location of santa in the last place they would look whilst they must thrwart the evil plan before midnight and the witch might take over christmas and punish ALL the naughty at once.
Overall this is a really good family movie, with some good fight sequences that must have been weird to film to say the least as allot seem to feature the fighting of mythical creatures. The effects are good but not excellent, they do seem to have spent allot of time and money on motion capture and then overlay the characters giving them a realistic feel but the whole theme of this movie is to engage the viewer in the world of santa, and not the real world. So it works surprisingly well. Now that said, the acting here is definetely done tongue in cheek as the saying goes with the actors taking the opportunity to ham it up. This is definatly a movie for the family to watch and enjoy together, though at a run time of over 2 hours it is a bit long for a christmas movie really. After a first watch this could have really been done in the more fitting hour and a half of the normal chrtmas movies we get. Dwayne, Chris and Lucy seem to have fully engrossed themselves in these roles however silly and that comes across on screen.
Do give this a go, it was released in theatres first but then after just a month went on to the Amazon platform a result no doubt of the purchase of MGM studios, but it can be seen now streaming and the recommendation is to see it on the biggest screen you can as the effects call for it. On your phone you just wont get the same effects not appreciate the size of the production.
As a overall movie it gets just a 3/5 but as a christmas movie that ties in multiple christmas stories from accross the globe into a single place with jokes, action and and an actual moral story it has to be a 4.5/5.
Enjoy…
