Not quite as terrible as its brief theatrical run critical reception would suggest, Santa Claus is kidnapped and his about-to-retire Head Of Security (Dwayne Johnson) teams up with a notorious lone-wolf bounty hunter (Chris Evens) to get him back by Christmas Eve in Amazon's preposterously big-budget attempt to make a family-friendly festive action-thriller that does not quite hit the mark. Oddly, the casting and pairing of Johnson and Evans works well, with Evans playing the 'innocent abroad' role well and Johnson playing the straight man effectively enough. The AntMan-esque size shenanigans are well executed, but there is a lot of over-scaled, hollow and empty CGI bloat on display and often the talky earnest dramatic scenes bring the pace down to an absolute crawl, as does a lengthy Krampus mid-section detour. The heavyweight lead cast - also including Lucy Liu and J.K. Simmons as a weights-crunching Santa - play it straight and serious and are as reliable as would be expected, but overall the film falls awkwardly between comedy/pastiche and genuine action/drama and makes perhaps the fatal error of erasing the magic and charm of Christmas for a somewhat dour and almost militaristic take on the mythology.
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