Arthur Christmas review

Taking a punt at the Christmas movie market these days is a bold move. While you might assume any old tinsel-wrapped nonsense with a heart-warming moral will be gobbled up by December audiences, recent years have seen more failures than admittances into the canon of beloved Christmas films.

Elf managed it, and as we all know, the Muppets can do no wrong, but attempting to squeeze into the place people reserve in their hearts for The Snowman and It’s A Wonderful Life is no mean feat. Whether a Christmas movie fails for being unintentionally creepy (The Polar Express), just plain odious (Fred Claus), or a schizophrenic cluster fiasco (Four Christmases), the festive film is a tough nut to crack.

Good job for Aardman then, that Arthur Christmas is fantastic.

Funny, sweet but never syrupy, full of properly-written characters and more than a little bit spectacular, The Snowman might need to budge up to make room for one more.

That Arthur Christmas comes from Aardman Animations cancels out the handicap automatically slapped on every CG feature around these days that’s not by Pixar. Aardman, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit, does very good, very charming, and very British comedy exceedingly well. What the studio is yet to find though, is a non-Wallace and Gromit, non-stop motion feature hit, and if there’s any justice, Arthur Christmas, the first of its collaborations with Sony, will be it.

Set mostly at the North Pole over the course of one Christmas Eve, Arthur Christmas tells the story of Santa’s hapless second son - the film’s titular hero – and his attempt to save Christmas. Sounds like every Christmas movie you’ve ever seen so far, right?

Right, but wrong too. The premise might be overly familiar, as might the lessons learned by the end of the film, but the script, characters and action have a good few surprises lined up, and are well worth sticking around for.

When we first meet Arthur (voiced by James McAvoy), he’s bumbling, clumsy and very enthusiastic about Christmas, right down to his novelty reindeer slippers. Relegated to an admin position at the North Pole, worrywart Arthur spends his time replying earnestly to letters from children around the world, assuring them that festive magic really exists.

His older brother, Steve (Hugh Laurie), is a high-achieving executive. As heir to the family’s coveted red suit, Steve choreographs their father’s gift-drop missions with a Bluetooth headset and an army of militarised elves, but not a whole lot of Christmas spirit.

When a child is accidentally left present-less on Christmas Eve, it’s Arthur and his curmudgeonly Grandsanta (Bill Nighy, stealing every scene he’s in), who decide to set things right. Styled after Buster Merryfield in Only Fools And Horses, Nighy’s un-PC Grandsanta is a large part of how Arthur Christmas manages to remain outside of sappy territory, despite its ‘magic of Christmas’ scenario.

Incidentally, Arthur Christmas’ co-writers, Sarah Smith, who also directed the film, and Peter Baynham share a comedy back catalogue which includes Chris Morris’ The Day Today and Brass Eye. With the sharpest of Brit satires on both of their CVs, it’s no wonder Arthur Christmas avoids becoming oversentimental and retains a tart sense of humour throughout.

Back to the story. Joined by Bryony (Ashley Jensen), a feisty Scottish elf from the wrapping division, and a senescent reindeer, Arthur and Grandsanta set sail on a mission to deliver one gift to one little girl, and get into a fair few scrapes as they go.

What follows is an action-packed, sci-fi tinged, child-friendly caper, but more interesting is Arthur Christmas’ depiction of the jealousies and insecurities that go on between the men of the Christmas family.

Essentially, what Aardman and Sony have done is tell a convincingly written story about a family business being passed down from father to son. That the business is about elves, sleighs and magic dust rather than say, window cleaning, is by the by.

The magical setting does of course afford the film’s makers opportunities to create beautiful scenery - one set piece in the Serengeti National Park is really spectacular – but the film is based soundly in character, not just impressive effects.
Arthur and Steve’s father (Jim Broadbent) is a man who let his job take precedence over his family, and is now terrified of losing the identity work gives him. His own father, now-retired, wants back the respect afforded him when he was dishing out the ho ho hos, while Steve and Arthur both vie for their dad’s attention, one son trying to attract it by ruthless efficiency, the other by blind adulation.

There’s a canny argument in Arthur Christmas about technology too, and one which offers up a neat answer for any audience members debating whether or not all this CG animation hasn’t lost the soul of good old-fashioned stop-motion and puppetry. Arthur Christmas does what a number of North Pole movies have done before it, by setting ‘modern technology’ up against ‘Christmas spirit’. Like Santa Claus: The Movie, Elf, and The Santa Clause 2, it points out that efficiency, automation, and hi-tech gadgets can’t compensate for losing the spirit of Christmas, but, and this isn’t a spoiler, resolves things in such a way as to suggest that technology has its merits, as long as it keeps its heart.

The conclusion being that Arthur Christmas might be a large scale, computer generated film that’s lost the visible finger prints which made Aardman’s early stop-motion work so endearing, but it’s retained its heart. The film even acknowledges the debt it owes to its plasticine predecessors with a few nods to previous Aardman work here and there (though I won’t ruin your fun by listing them here).

Arthur Christmas is wonderfully free of cliché in some ways – there’s no love interest, for instance, and no real villain – but is otherwise comfortably grounded in familiar storytelling standards, and convincing characters. Yes, there’s something of a sag in the middle third, but the film gears up to such an enjoyable final act you’ll forget all about it.

Arthur Christmas isn't just a film worth going to see. It's also a film that's likely to find a slot in your Christmas DVD collection, too.  It well deserves a place

Arthur Christmas is released in the UK on 11th November.

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