Elliot: The Littlest Reindeer

If Jennifer Westcott’s animated kids’ movie Elliot the Littlest Reindeer was a Christmas gift, it’d be the toothbrush at the bottom of your stocking. It’s well-intentioned, and you might get some use out of it, but let’s just pray it’s not the highlight of your holiday season.

A would-be new “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” it’s energetic and polished enough to avoid feeling like a rip-off — “Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny,” this is not — but there the compliments pretty much end.

This fantasy, about a miniature horse aching to join Santa’s team of reindeer, works hard but underwhelms.

Nestled inside that warm setup is cloying dialogue, condescending voice work and confusing story tangents.

The action/competition scenes have some dynamism, but the overall look of the film is unimaginative.

Lump “Littlest Reindeer” in with “The Star” and every other released and forgotten animated half-hearted holiday hit that never was.

New evidence for the case that computer animation is homogenizing children’s movies, robbing them of visual interest, this harmless, charmless movie plods along well-trodden turf.