Arthur Christmas
“Arthur Christmas” is Aardman animation’s first feature since their underappreciated 2006 CG-animated comedy, “Flushed Away,” and they’ve lost none of that sense of fun and wry humor. Admittedly, the previews for their NEXT film, 2012’s “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” (which returns them to their native medium, claymation), look like the next great effort from the house Wallace & Gromit built, but “Arthur Christmas” is a fun return to the Aardman aesthetic, which is very, very British. Very British.
The main theme of the film revolves around an undying belief in the spirit of Christmas, as experienced through the eyes of Arthur (voiced by James McAvoy), the youngest son of the current Santa, Malcolm (Jim Broadbent). Arthur is a bit of an outcast in the family: his grandfather (Bill Nighy) was a Santa; his father is the current Santa; and his older brother, Steve (Hugh Laurie), is next in line to take over as Santa. To his family, Arthur isn’t really Santa material, but his excitement about the season is perfect for the mail department, where he goes through the letters children send, and responds to them with his enthusiasm. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm isn’t really at the heart of the Christmas operation anymore, where Santa is more of a symbol of the season, and an enormous team of elves do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of getting the gifts together, and getting them to the children. However, when a child gets missed through an unfortunate accident, it might be up to Arthur and an old-school way of doing Christmas to make sure the holiday spirit is kept alive.
Christmas movies, especially Christmas family movies, are tricky to pull off. First among those reasons is the most important one: how do you make a family movie about Christmas, about Santa Claus, no less, that doesn’t succumb to a militantly child-centric view of the holidays, which is something that Robert Zemeckis did too much of in “The Polar Express.” Aardman and co-writer/director Sarah Smith are too offbeat for that, and it’s the more adult-friendly humor that they’re able to inject into “Arthur Christmas” that makes the film a delightful treat from beginning to end. It lacks the sharp, insightful wit of “Chicken Run” and the “Wallace & Gromit” shorts, but the heart laced with goofy charm of those classic efforts is alive and well in this entertaining holiday comedy.
