Arthur Christmas

Came to this one late, almost in protest. Started showing sometime mid-November, so I resolved not to see it until after Christmas. Glad I did though, because it's quite fun.

The basic setup is that we're getting to see behind the scenes of how Santa does his annual delivery. Due to the massive up-scaling that's gone on because Christmas is now a global phenomenon, and Santa promises to deliver one appropriate toy to every child in the world, the delivery is now a massive industrial scale operation, where Santa (Jim Broadbent) arrives in a camouflaged, city-sized UFO of a sleigh, and a legion of hyperactive elves deliver the presents with the speed and precision of highly trained special forces operatives, while Santa bumbles around putting in a symbolic appearance.

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, the whole operation is masterminded by Santa's older son Steve Christmas (Hugh Laurie), who has designed this high tech operation. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, works Arthur Christmas (James McAvoy), Santa's bumbling but well meaning younger son, who answers Christmas letters.

In all the confusion of the night, one present gets missed, and a child is going to go without their special present. Santa and Steve don't seem to think this is too much of a problem; they'll deliver it later, within the week, and meanwhile Christmas has been a 99.9999991% success. Only Arthur thinks this is a terrible state of affairs, and so seeks the aid of his grandfather, Grandsanta, who reveals that he still has the old reindeer driven sleigh, and agrees to help Arthur deliver the last present before sunup.

It's a pretty great film. It's Aardman Animations, and it should go down as one of those "Well, it's not Wallace and Gromitt, but it's pretty good" outings. It's full of pretty good sight gags, and all the performances are spot on. And of course, core to it all is the very familiar to all of us concept, that when you start doing something for a living, you quickly lose enthusiasm for that thing, and focus on the job in hand. The Christmas family clearly don't have much time for their own family Christmas, like Christmas is for the general public. They all have their particular ideas how the job ought to be done, and the whole thing is one colossal Christmas Family Argument, with only Arthur actually having any enthusiasm for the idea of Christmas, because he's a colossal naive idiot. And so, while his elders in-fight amongst themselves, the task of upholding the family honour and reputation falls on his pretty inadequate shoulders.

I think it scores pretty highly, because it's clearly entertaining to kids (I saw it in a cinema full of them, and they all seemed wowed), but has enough actual plot underlying it to be of interest to adults, and the jokes are funny for everyone. Rather than the usual rubbish of throwing jokes that kids won't understand in as a sop to the poor adults. I believe this to be a film that kids and adults can enjoy together, and on pretty much the same level, which is a rare trick indeed.