Arthur Christmas (2011) review

(9/10)

I didn't expect this to amount to as much as the critics made it out to be, but this really surprised me. I felt a certain sense of holiday joy I haven't sensed in a while.

PLOT:At the North Pole, things aren't all exactly as the media have made it out to me. In today's Christmas, the elves do most of the work, they use a big camoflauged spaceship, and it's all a steady-run computer operation. The current Santa (Jim Broadbent) and his elves run this year's mission practically flawless under the supervision of his son, Steve (Hugh Laurie), who is vying for the next Santa. However, the klutzy other son of Santa, Arthur (James McAvoy), stumbles upon a present forgotten and insists on taking it to this little girl. Santa and Steve both ignore the idea, but kind-hearted Arthur teams up with his Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), hitches up the reindeer to the old slay, and dashes into the night to deliver the missed present before the sun comes up. It's a good plot executed very greatly.



VOICES:The voice acting is pretty good. James McAvoy's voice could get annoying as Arthur's awkward British voice, but it actually fit his character rather well. Jim Broadbent did a brilliant job as Santa, and so did Bill Nighy as Grandsanta. The other shiners would be Hugh Laurie as Steve, Imelda Staunton as Mrs. Santa, and Ashley Jensen as Bryony, even though her voice acting is kind of like McAvoy's with Arthur.

SCORE:The score was mainly played for dramatic effect, but it was pretty good.

ANIMATION:This definitely wasn't the best animation I've seen, especially for being one of Aardman's production. It was computer animated instead of clay-animated, but it still held a certain precision and cleanliness.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie blew me away in some parts. This movie was wild, creative, and very emotional. This movie contained some very wild parts where it became funny and quirky, and it was also very creative with its thought process. The greatest high this has, however, is the emotional impact. This enhances the holiday emotion of getting up on Christmas morning as a child and feeling the magic of what you once believed to be Santa's joy. It will make you, if you have a warm enough heart, feel Christmas nostalgia toward your childhood. It was a really surprising outcome; I didn't expect it to be this much in-depth. However, this does have a noticeable shortcoming. The wackiness the humor in the story gives makes it a little unstable, like it's a children's movie that doesn't know what it wants. It's still a great, emotional holiday film either way.

OVERALL,an awesome Christmas movie with a great plot, good voice acting, good score, precision animation, wild humor, creative ideas, and a great holiday emotional impact, but it is a bit unstable for its own self