Arthur Christmas is an animated film produced by the British Aardman Animations (Wallace & Gromit, Flushed Away) and distributed by Sony Pictures Animation. It stars James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent as a multi-generational family of Santas. It has a fresh rating of 91% on rottentomatoes.com, and I watched it on Netflix.
Arthur Christmas begins with the question: “How does Santa deliver presents to children all around the world in just one night?” The answer? A giant spaceship-sized sleigh that can travel 200,000 mph, complete with an extremely advanced computer system and thousands of elves who deliver the majority of presents covert ops-style. Santa is largely a figurehead who delivers one token present per town, with a lot of help from the elves. He doesn’t do much else, as he’s getting on in his old age, and is somewhat absent-minded.
You see, this Santa (aka Malcolm Christmas) is the latest in a long line of Santa Clauses, as the responsibility of delivering presents on Christmas Eve is passed down from father to son over the generations. Malcolm has two sons: Steve and Arthur. Steve (big, strong, alpha male) is the one behind the technology, spaceship, etc and runs Mission Control back at the North Pole while Santa makes his rounds. Arthur (small, shy, clumsy, but with a good heart) works in the Letters department, answering children’s letters to Santa.
On this particular Christmas, Steve and his team are successful in delivering 2 billion presents to children worldwide. They are celebrating another successful completed Christmas mission when Bryony, an elf from the Wrapping Division, discovers one present left over on the sleigh. This, of course, means that one child has been missed and will wake up on Christmas Day without a present from Santa. Steve, who thinks in terms of numbers and percentages, doesn’t see this as a problem – this falls well within his margin of error. Arthur, on the other hand, feels that they absolutely have to find a way to deliver this final present before sunrise. Adventurous antics ensue.
I loved Arthur Christmas. It’s a fresh take on the Santa legend, with a good script and excellent voice acting from some of Britain’s best. This film explores how Christmas has changed over the years, but from the perspective of Santa Claus. The theme of “new vs old” is central to the story, with Steve and his newfangled technology on the one side, and “Grand Santa” (Bill Nighy) with his traditional sleigh and eight tiny reindeer on the other.
It’s a fun ride, my kids LOVED it, and I can definitely see this film becoming a part of our annual Christmas viewing tradition.
Next up: Go.
