I know it's late to be touting a Christmas movie, but since you're probably wishing you had a day off again, you might be open to some Yuletide cheer. And Arthur Christmas is just the movie for the job. Brought to you by the brilliant people of Aardman Animations (the ones responsible for the stop-motion claymation wizardry of Wallace & Gromit), this film will enchant and delight you from the very first second.
Unlike Aardman's previous claymation works, this movie is presented in straightforward computer animation (with 3D in select theatres of course, but I didn't see the 3D version). It looks beautiful, just as well thought-out and designed as their previous films, although presumably requiring a lot less manpower and time to create. The story is set in the modern-day North Pole, where Santa's annual mission to deliver presents to the 2 billion children of the world is a vastly technological enterprise, complete with a high-tech sleigh that is the size of a small city and contains ports through which elves can rappel down, drop off a present in their designated house, and race back up within a few minutes. Santa (real name: Malcolm) is mostly a figurehead who is guided by elves to drop off presents in a few houses and look like he's keeping up the Christmas spirit. The man working behind the scenes is his son, Steve (voiced with sneering glee by Hugh Laurie), who coordinates all the satellites, GPS navigators, and thousands of elves that go into making Christmas run as smoothly as possible. Steve is all about efficiency and guzzling espresso, in stark contrast to his younger brother, Arthur.
Voiced charmingly by James McAvoy, Arthur is the bumbling, clumsy son, sentenced to work in the mailroom where he answers all of the letters to Santa written by children across the world. Even though Arthur wreaks havoc if he sets foot in the control room, knocking over elves and inadvertently flipping switches or setting off alarms, he is thoroughly invested in writing back to these children and looks forward to Christmas with more happy anticipation than anyone else in his family. For everyone else, Christmas is the family business, something they have to do perfectly and then be done with on December 25th. But for Arthur, Christmas is the greatest day of the year, featuring the greatest man he knows - his father, Santa.
The trouble arises when the night's mission is seemingly over and everyone is getting ready for bed. A gift-wrapping elf named Bryony (a hilariously squeaky Scottish creature voiced by Ashley Jensen) is clearing up the control room when she discovers a gift that (gasp!) didn't get delivered. Somewhere in Cornwall, there's a little girl named Gwen who won't get the pink bike she asked for. Naturally this breaks Arthur's heart, but his father and Steve just shrug it off as being within the margin of error. But Arthur can't let it go so he teams up with Bryony and his granddad (Grand Santa, who has ulterior motives of his own for this act of decency) to race to Cornwall before sunrise and deliver Gwen's present.
The movie proceeds with whimsy, heart, and hilarity, the combination you'd expect from an Aardman picture. There are sight gags and one-liners littered throughout the film and while young children will love the animation and story, only adults can truly appreciate the humor. The voice actors do a splendid job and the story is a surprising and fun twist on the classic tale of Santa up at the North Pole with his reindeer and sleigh. The ending is appropriately heartwarming and the journey you take to get there is fantastic.
With Arthur Christmas, Aardman Animations has revealed that they are a force to be reckoned with in computer animation. This movie didn't do that well at the box office, probably because most people think any non-Pixar animated film is a waste of time and aren't aware of Aardman's pedigree (come on, they won an Oscar for a Wallace & Gromit short!). But I hope the film gains a wider audience and appreciation upon its DVD release. If Aardman continues to make movies with such excellent scripts, actors, and characters, it won't be long before everyone will be impatiently awaiting the next Aardman Animations release, right alongside that Pixar summer blockbuster.
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| Arthur & Bryony: a man and an elf on a mission |
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