Film Review: Arthur Christmas
Dec 15, 2011 03:36AM ● By Wendy Sipple
Arthur Christmas is the son of Santa, who is reaching retirement age. Arthur’s brother Steve is set to become the next Santa. The family lives in the North Pole along with Grandsanta, Mrs. Claus, and thousands of elves. Steve runs Christmas like a military machine complete with state of the art technology. Despite all of the technology one little girl is missed. Santa and Steve declare it impossible to deliver the little girl her present leaving Arthur, along with the help of Grandsanta and a small elf to get the job done the old fashioned way...on a sleigh with flying reindeer.
In spite of its bad marketing campaign, Arthur Christmas is a delightful holiday movie. This should have come as no surprise as Aardman Studios, the animation company responsible for Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run, made this film. In fact Aardman is right up there with Pixar in terms of quality despite the vast difference in marketability. There is a love of characters in their stories and Arthur Christmas is no exception. There is so much personality bursting through in this movies it’s an easy adventure to follow regardless if you are five or 95, which what make holiday films classics.
I love how the writers infuse the Santa Claus story with a rich history. Having the three generations of Santa Clauses in the movie really worked. Pitting technology against the old ways and the struggle of youth versus the ability to gracefully settle into retirement all played well together. This made the story poignant for older audiences while the younger audiences will have fun with the action and the comedy. I particularly enjoyed Grandsanta and his old reindeer that acted much like a dog.
There were several very clever scenes which were very well timed and kept the pace of the movie going quick. The voice acting and animation were all top notch and very engaging. Overall Arthur Christmas is a great holiday movie to take the entire family to see, I highly recommend it.
Films like Arthur Christmas – Chicken Run, Elf and The Santa Clause
Justin Buettner is Style's resident movie dude! How did he get this role? Well, he graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a Bachelor of Arts in film Production and a duel minor in Animation and Business with an emphasis in the entertainment field. He later went on to work on several independent films in various key roles including writer and later worked in the special effects field as a motion capture artist. He has since relocated to the Sacramento area with his family and continues writing for small independent films in addition to his movie reviews for Style Magazine.