Arthur Christmas: An animated comedy from Aardman. You know what that means? Lots of British humour! You know what that also means? I need to watch the movie more than once to get the British humour because I'm dumb that way!



Arthur Christmas answers a popular question: How does Santa get around the world with presents all in one night? Also, why is it that we can never see Santa's house even if we searched it on Google Earth? The answer is that Santa (voiced by Jim Broadbent)and his millions if (ninja) elves go around the world delivering presents in a high tech spaceship. The person controlling this mission is none other than his son, Steve (Hugh Laurie). One day, however, a child's present has not been delivered and it up to Arthur (James McAvoy) and his granfather, grandsanta (Bill Nighy)to get that present to the child before Christmas morning.

Yes, the story's highly predictable but aside from that I really enjoyed this movie. It was smart, funny and beautifully animated. This movie is, also, coming from Aardman (the people who created Chicken Run and Happy Feet). In this movie, every character is likable as well. Arthur, the extremely holiday-spirited boy, is very lovable and I thought that James McAvoy has done such a great job to bring out the sweetness and innocence of this character. Grandsanta is very funny as well.

The animation is brilliant. The details to the character's hair, clothes, clouds- all beautifully done. I know this sounds gross but I was looking at Grandsanta's nose at one point and I just love how they put so much detail into it. Also, the first flying scene was great and it really gave me that sense of flight (and it reminded me of How to Train Your Dragon as well!)

The humour, I thought, was okay. It wasn't laugh-out-loud funny but I had a few chuckles here and there. I saw what they were trying to do but I didn't think it was as funny as everyone said it was to be. Some jokes feel flat for me and were a little too kiddish for my taste.

The movie dragged in the middle and I couldn't help but feel a little bored.

The "moral of the story" was pretty interesting too because it wasn't for kids. They tackled on the issue of "Old vs New" and which is better. So, that's always interesting to see how one has an advantage over the other.

This would be definitely be one of the movies where families would watch over and over again on Christmas. Arthur Christmas is a Christmas classic.