ANI-MOVIES, *Klaus

As their first ever original animated movie, Netflix premiered this full-length feature exclusively on their streaming service. Directed by Sergio Pablos, who was a former animator for Disney, brought his skills to this talent to this production done by his own company, and his talents are highlighted as the main character's profile is a humanized replica of Dr. Doppler from Treasure Planet. Pablos' directorial debut resulted in one of the first original 2D animated movies since The Princess And The Frog, plus several awards including Netflix's first animated Oscar nomination.

Happening possibly sometime in the early 20th Century, Jesper is the son of the head of the postman academy, and his father hoped his son would eventually shake off his spoiled upbringing to take up the role of a hardworking postman. Jesper is then cast out to the far northern town of Smeerensburg to run a post office, and he has a year to mail 6,000 letters, otherwise he will be cut off. The vain postman soon realizes that his new dingy home is the residency of the longest running fued between two families. After realizing that none of the citizens have any mail to send to anyone, Jesper checks up on a lone woodcutter isolated on the northern part of the island, who is an intimidating large bearded man named Klaus that spends most of his spare time making birdhouses. But Jesper finds out that Klaus has an entire storehouse filled with toys he made, and the two of them eventually unite to help deliver toys to the lonely children of the town by sending letters away to Klaus. This begins a ripple effect where the childen start to play with each other, better behavior, wanting to attend school, and causing the older citizens to act more neighborly. All this positive attitude ruffles the feathers of the heads of each feuding family who decide to work together top stop Jesper and Klaus' racket. After eventuallty running out of the toys, Klaus recieves help from nearby Sami village to prepare for one big haul of toys in a plan Jesper came up with, to be delivered on Christmas Eve. What follows is Jesper having to decide whether or not he wants to finally reach his goal to win back his father's favor and leave, or to help Klaus bring peace to the town.

This was a very fresh take on the origins of Santa Claus, even though there have been hundreds done over the last century. Klaus stands out from the rest by having a story set far back, but successfully makes it appealing for modern audiences. The animation is breathtakingly gorgeous, mixing in with some CGI, but with a strong foothold in tradional 2D productions. Klaus has a definitive place in the library of holiday classics.