Klaus (2019)
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Klaus Movie Review
Klaus is a 2019 animated film directed by Sergio Pablos and starring Jason Schwartzman and J. K. Simmons. It’s such a good first animated feature effort from Netflix.
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“We need to show people that a true,
selfless act always sparks another“
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After proving himself to be the worst postman at the academy, a postman is posted to a frozen town in the North where he discovers Santa Claus is hiding out. So yes, this acts as basically an origin story for Santa Claus and the overall Christmas tradition of giving gifts to children during the holiday. And it was such an ingenious idea that it’s weird how nobody thought of it before.
The film is very endearing and mostly old-fashioned in its storytelling approach. I liked the rest of the movie as well, but the first act remains the best one for obvious reasons. It features particularly atmospheric thrills and a very mysterious location as well as characters. The movie was at its most mature and most adventurous in this part.
But yes, later on, though still good, the movie became a bit more standard. I am of course talking about a lot of action that it has, a lot of typical humor that it introduced and overall the story wasn’t nearly as intriguing as it was before. The movie still remains very good, but it could have been amazing had they tweaked the second and third act a bit.
Let’s talk about the characters. Jesper is your typical clumsy cartoon character, but his laziness added a different flair to the usual animated protagonist. That appealed to me personally as I had been extremely lazy before, and the beginning of the movie perfectly introduced us to him and put him on a very rewarding journey for growth.
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Klaus is our Santa Claus before he became Santa Claus. I found his intimidating nature and overall mysterious air to him very cool, though a bit overused to make a point how “dangerous” he is. But the relationship between the two is great, and his backstory is lovely.
The rest of the characters serve their purpose, but are less developed with the exception of that Sami girl. Wow, how beautiful her subplot was, and how they honored these people was just so unexpected and incredibly heartwarming.
Klaus need to be talked about more for its animation especially. Yes, this is a rare US release that is hand-drawn in its entirety. The character designs are classical throughout and very lovely while the landscapes and interiors are absolutely gorgeous through and through. The visuals go hand in hand with making this remote, mysterious, icy setting come alive and it made for a more enchanting experience.
This is the perfect time now to present my theory for how hand-drawn animation should evolve to be competitive in today’s market. This movie is a perfect example of that as it mixes traditional animation in character design and overall visuals, but they used CGI to elevate its limitations such as adding a more polished look to its execution, lighting and effects. This mix to me is perfect and I hope more people realized that.
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Klaus is well paced, but not particularly well structured. The direction is fine, but not great. The dialogue is very good, but the humor could have been better. And I really disliked the modern soundtrack in this traditional story myself. Overall, it has its flaws, but for the first time, Netflix should be congratulated for making one of the better animated films of the year.
Klaus is a terrific first animated feature coming from Netflix. Yes, it has its flaws such as an inferior second half with some standard plot elements, but the first half is so amazing, very mysterious, intriguing and wonderfully atmospheric. The film gives us a very charming Santa Claus origin story through absolutely wonderful, old-fashioned traditional animation. Finally, we got a hand-drawn feature from the US and it was just lovely to behold.
