Klaus: Sergio Pablos and Carlos Martínez López’s animated sort-of origin story seems to be more interested in dutifully checking boxes of the traditional characteristics of Santa Claus than it is in telling a well-built story. To make matters worse, the conducting thread is a fool, selfish character; one hopes for his scheme to work not for his sake, but because Christmas is what is supposed to happen. Voice acting is generally solid; Jason Schwartzman builds a convincing fool; J.K. Simmons, a sweetly gruff Klaus. The film makes good use of music, both the original score composed by Alfonso G. Aguilar and pre-existing songs. The style of animation feels simplistic by comparison to other contemporary animations, while not achieving the beauty of some hand-drawn films; it’s cute, but not memorable. The character design is rich, creating very distinctive and visually interesting looks.