2007’s animated flight of fancy Christmas is Here Again features a dearth of well-known comic performers, though this one is squarely aimed at much younger, less demanding viewers. Jay Leno narrates the story of little Sophiana (Madison Davenport) who, with the help of a friendly elf, fox, polar bear and a reindeer, is on a mission to retrieve Santa’s missing toy sack and Save Christmas. It’s all done in a very retro 2D Cartoon Network animation style, but is definitely aimed at smaller kids.
With dread, a few minutes in I also twig that this is – gulp! – a musical. I’m not the biggest fan of musicals – I don’t know if I’ll ever really grasp why all the action in a story has to stop every few minutes so everyone can sing and dance about for a bit. However, if the songs are ok, I can usually tolerate them just fine. Sadly, the tunes in this one are really ropy, with especially poor lyrics like –
“Who stole Santa’s sack?
The sack he carries on his back?
Won’t you bring it back?”
Urgh. I especially love how they rhyme ‘back’ with ‘back.’
Davenport is a great singer for such a youngster though, belting out the tunes and bringing a lot of charm to this unchallenging, breezy tale. Sophiana is the obligatory orphan with a heart of gold who has to contend with Kathy Bates' dastardly orphanage mistress.
Lost in the woods, she stumbles across an elf curiously named Paul Rocco (Daniel Roebuck) frozen in ice. After defrosting the little guy, they set off to save the season, joined by cuddly Dart, a reindeer calf (Colin Ford), Buster the fox (Norm MacDonald), and his friend, Charlee the polar bear (Brad Garett).
The plot is easygoing family-friendly fare served well by this great cast. Andy Griffiths is a reliably cuddlesome Santa, while Ed Asner makes for a great grouchy villain as Krad, a sort of demonic yuletide-hating wizard. He’s run off with Santa’s all-important sack, meaning the holidays will essentially be ruined. No sack, means no presents, which means no yuletide spirit, spelling absolute disaster. It’s actually a bit of a shady view of the festive season, focused on the importance of receiving presents, but it’s cute, so I cut them some slack.
It also gets quite interesting when it’s revealed that this is all set in a world where children no longer know who Santa is, though naturally the elf sings a cheesy song to explain. In another odd but original creative choice, it’s later explained that Santa’s sack is enchanted because it is made from the swaddle of the baby Jesus. Whoah.
It's a well-worn story about believing in your potential, which is a perfectly decent message for kids, but I keep thinking how this is pretty much just a cuter and less-interesting version of the Danish A Christmas Story. Still, it's hard to resist a film that perfectly casts big, booming Garrett as a loveable polar bear, or deadpan MacDonald as an acerbic, sarcastic fox. These two make a great double act and, though it’s no classic, on what turns out to be one of the chilliest days for 25 years, this one has enough festive heart to keep me warm.
I do have a few questions about the ending though, with our heroes burying the baddies under a mountain of coal. Did they just kill them all!? Jesus…
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