My Movie Review on Arthur Christmas

Aloha, my good friends.

This is your jolly film, TV show, and episode reviewing bloke here with another film review, as well as my second installment of my "Christmas in July Jamboree".

And today, I'll be giving you all an analysis on Aardman Animation's "Arthur Christmas".

Here's the rundown of it:

Young Arthur is the 2nd child of is father, Malcolm, who takes on the role of Santa Claus and delivers presents to children around the world with the help of Arthur's tech-loving older brother, Steven.

Unwittingly, however, a child by the name of Gwen Hines is missed and hasn't been given her present yet.

With the help of his traditionalist grandfather and a gift wrapping elf named Bryony Shelley, Arthur travels the world to get to Gwen's house in Turlew, England and deliver her present before Christmas morning.

Will Arthur and the others deliver the present to Gwen in time? Or will she be the only child Santa doesn't deliver a present to?

Let's start with the music, it was done by Harry-Gregson Williams and was definitely excellent. He gave it a brilliant sense of holiday spirit, perfect for a Christmas film. Additionally, he also gave the music warmth, which can be reminiscent to that of drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows.

The comedy aspect of the film, however, was something that I found to be largely lacking. When it comes to comedy, Aardman is normally able to make any moment they come up with hilarious to the point of laughter. The humor that they incorporated in this film, though, was mostly cute, but not cute enough to be laughable. The only standouts come from the parts where characters end up in Turlew, Mexico by accident instead of Turlew, England. All in all, the gags felt forced at best.

The story that was written by Sarah Smith and Peter Baynham was definitely original, I'll tell you that. I mean, sure, Santa Claus films weren't really uncommon, but how Aardman was able to play out the concept was new. The only trouble, though, is that while it does try to be heartfelt and full of emotion, each of those things barely succeeded at accomplishing the goal. Just like the humor, each of them felt forced, and the direction by Sarah Smith certainly didn't help at all.

I will admit that the animation was certainly good, particularly what was done with the environments and surroundings of the film. However, it seemed like after a long period of time, one can't help but think Aardman is better suited for making stop-motion animated features more than films entirely computer-animated. It's mainly because the movie seemed to have too many obvious signs of being cheaply computer-animated, particularly with the character animation.

Finally, it all comes down to the voice acting, characters, and character development.

I can totally start by saying that there was some pretty descent character development throughout the film, most notably from Arthur, Steven, Malcolm, and GrandSanta, who each learned things that helped them to successfully grow.

The performances of James McAvoy as Arthur, Bill Nighy as GrandSanta, and Ashley Jensen as Bryony Shelfley were the ones that stood out to me the most in terms of outstanding voice acting.

McAvoy, I found, gave his character a warm sense of innocence and kindness, making him lovable like a teddy bear. Jensen gave her character marvelous energy with every line she said. And Bill Nighy...man, he gave his character tons of great flair, with GrandSanta's moments of eccentricity and feistiness being some of his best moments.

Meanwhile, though, Hugh Laurie and Jim Broadbent, and their characters of Steven and Malcolm (the current Santa Claus) were the elements I was less than impressed by.

Malcolm wasn't a very tolerable character because a lot of times...he just seemed too naive and stupid, often looking like he had no idea what he was doing, and Broadbent's performance only seemed to fuel Malcolm's lack of intelligence.

Also, with the exception of the film's ending, Steve was extremely unlikable and mean, with everything that he did looking as if he was ruining the film. On the subject of Hugh Laurie, I will say that I have nothing against him personally, he's an excellent actor and comedian. However, his performance only seemed to make Steven even more infuriating, and he gave little comedic flair.

As my final noting, I'd like to point out that there was this one moment where, after the elves and Santa complete the deliveries, two elves were kissing. It was hard to tell whether the two of them were a male and female or both of the same gender, but to me, they looked to both be male! I realize that I normally don't make a big deal out of something like this in my reviews, and the moment was very brief, but it was so noticeable that I literally can't help but think about how disturbing, disgusting, and unnecessary that was. Along with that, Steve's assistant elf, Peter, who was played by Marc Wootton, seemed to be acting too suspiciously friendly towards Steve, and it made me think the elf was gay and had a crush on Steve.

In the end, "Arthur Christmas" is a film that I would like to classify as 'cute, but not compelling'. It has lots of negatives, but Williams's music score, and the performances of McAvoy, Nighy, and Jensen were able to save the day.

So, I rate "Arthur Christmas" three out of five stars.

Comments

[Spin Harmony]

This sounds kind of interesting. I might watch it eventually.

[Godslittleprincess]

I only saw maybe the last half hour. I don't know. I thought it was trying to hard to be relevant.