Arthur Christmas. Rated G. 97 minutes. Directed by Sarah Smith. Screenplay by Peter Baynham and Sarah Smith.
Even in spite of the occasional lapses in pace and a mountain of exposition, it’s impossible not to be won over by the originality and abundant charms of this post-modern riff on the story of the Claus family – led by an utterly charming turn from James McAvoy (Wanted, Atonement, The Last King of Scotland) who provides the voice of the title character.
As Santa (Jim Broadbent) prepares for retirement, his uptight and ambitious eldest son Steve (Hugh Laurie), with the help of an army of elves, oversees the military operation that ensures children all over world receive their presents. When a glitch in the hi-tech, space-age delivery system results in a little girl’s bicycle failing to be delivered, the youngest son and black sheep of the family Arthur (Mr McAvoy), sets off with his Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) and elf Bryony (Ashley Jensen), a gift-wrapping expert, to deliver the present using more conventional (and reliable) methods.
The animation from Aardman (Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Flushed Away) is typically full of singularly engaging, oddball characters and situations, and the departure from their celebrated plasticine-inspired, stop-motion animation techniques results in some glorious picture-book settings and sequences. The good, old-fashioned ‘reindeer and sleigh’ sequences are bravura displays of consummate skill – even if the screenplay does become a little too bogged-down in unwieldy complications.
With its mixture of sci-fi inspired logistics (the running gag about a recalcitrant GPS is hilarious) and the reliance on more trustworthy, if outmoded, methods of transport, Arthur Christmas makes some fine and important points about values, consumerism and the joys of Christmas for children. The scene where Arthur watches young Gwen discover her bicycle under the Christmas Tree is, simply, quite beautiful – and a timely reminder that, more often than not, giving can be equally as rewarding as receiving.
This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group and the print edition is included below.
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