ANI-MOVIES, *Arthur Christmas

Arthur Christmas was the second fully-CGI animated movie produced by Aardman who started out as steadfast stop motion animators. DreamWorks had previously done a computer animated film with Aardman five years prior in Flushed Away which didn't perform well, but Sony Pictures contacted Aardman and created a more polished holiday-themed project, even though it also wasn't considered an immediate blockbuster. Sarah Smith did a fantastic job as director keeping up all the intricate features in this picture that she went on to do Ron's Gone Wrong. Arthur Christmas is a cinematic project with so much rewatch value because it maintains a plethora of particular details similar to an Edgar Wright movie. There are a finite number of the regular characters and an entire legion of elf helpers to remember about, so balancing them out was a difficult task. The CGI Aardman utilized is a vast improvement over what they did in Flushed Away, even though they've stuck with claymation films since then.

All set during a single Christmas, the gang from the North Pole deliver all the presents in a single night, except for one. Turns out, the title of Santa is birthright handed down from one generation of Claus to the other. The current one is Malcom who is well beyond the time he should have retired and normally leaves the actual Christmas operations to his oldest son Steve who has transformed their toy delivery into the digital age replacing the old sleigh with Star Trek-styled airship the size of a city complete with a Klingon cloaking device. Malcom's younger son Arthur is clumsy but well-meaning and in charge of receiving letters from all the children and one child in England has their Christmas wish unanswered, so Arthur and his grandfather Grandsanta who was Santa before Malcom set out in the old reindeer-driven sleigh to get the girl her bicycle. Along with an expert gift-wrapping elf, Arthur's quest causes UFO sighting from all over the world to the point that the United Nations send a drone to blow them out of the sky, although they do manage to finally drop off the present while all three generations of the Claus family putting aside their differences to nominate Arthur as the new Santa.

Arthur Christmas has slowly become a holiday favorite over the years, just not as memorable as some other recent yuletide movies like Klaus. The film stacks an entire wish list of British actors with James McAvoy as Arthur, along with Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Michael Palin, Robbie Coltrane, Joan Cusack, and Jane Horrock, although most of them play elves with high-pitched voices so it's hard to tell some of them apart. Another thing about the elves is that they are mostly indistinguishable from each other to the point where some viewers caused a panic thinking there was a same-sex kiss between two of them, keeping in mind that most fantasy tales have elves being androgynous. The primary message of this film is about a family learning to compromise in order to achieve their goals together which is what makes this a sterling family-friendly standard.