FOR FANS of British films in general and animation in particular, any release from Aardman studios is a marquee event. This week’s arrival of Arther Christmas, just in time for…er, Christmas, is no exception.
The team behind such mini-classics as Chicken Run and the Wallace and Gromit saga prove to be in top form again with this seasonal excursion, in which we find Santa’s whole operation run like a ruthless multinational by the Jolly Old Elf’s son, Steve (deliciously voiced by Hugh Lurie). Instead of a corpulent old guy on a sleigh with a team of reindeer, we have an Independence Day-sized mothership from which teams of elves rappel, SAS style, into living rooms across the world. Gone is the jolly operation of yore, replaced by a just-time-inventoried, computer planned and mechanized campaign that is planned and executed to the millisecond.
And it works too (almost), which is why Santa senior (Jim Broadbent), is happy to gaze benignly over the empire of his son, checked out and docile while continuing to head the family firm as little more than a figurehead. (Whether this is a metaphor for the Murdoch or even the Windsors viewers can decide for themselves. I suspect the latter).
But then young Arthur (James McAvoy), whose earnest, old fashioned approach to the business has left him banished to the mail room, discovers that a hiccup has left one little Cornish girl without the pink bike she’d written Santa about. When the higher-ups shrug it off as within the margin of error, Arthur swings into action, skulking out of the complex to make all things right with the world. Predictably, trouble follows close behind.
Fans of British humor in general and Wallace and Gromit in particular will know what to expect from this movie, and they won’t be disappointed. Expect a rollicking, fast-paced story, lots of memorable minor characters and some hilarious audio and visual puns, before Arthur finds vindication and the spirit of Christmas is well and truly restored. This is a great Christmas movie, and it’s nice to find such a welcome treat delivered so early.
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