Tech-Savvy 'Arthur Christmas' Isn't Your Parent's Christmas Movie

The entire Claus family bring joy to the children of the world, particularly young Arthur. 

It just doesn’t feel like Christmas unless there’s a Christmas movie hitting the theater. Luckily this year, we’ve already had our holiday treat in A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas. But wait! Aardman, the studio that brought us Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit are joining in on the fun with a modern take on the whole Santa operation in Arthur Christmas. 

Operation: Christmas has gone beyond the typical Santa, sleigh and reindeer. Instead, with the innovations of eldest son Steve, the plan is now part "Mission: Impossible" mixed with North Pole quite similar to NASA’s mission control. But when the foolproof plan misses a child in England, Santa’s younger and clumsy son, Arthur, takes it upon himself to deliver the forgotten present halfway across the globe.

Call me old-fashioned, but Santa is an always will be a sleigh and reindeer going down chimneys. This new take on the centuries-old tale caters to a younger generation, who simply cannot do anything now without a smartphone or something constantly plugged in their ear. Sure, Ethan Hunt-esque elves are fun to watch and the “Naughty or Nice detector” type gadgets reflect the genre and keep young audiences visually enamored, but it can be too much at times. Dressing up a classic tale with modern technology, doesn’t mean it’s any better unless it can actually be made to work within the structure. Though a crucial portion of the narrative, it still doesn’t weigh down the more important aspects.

And what’s more important than technology? Try family and kind spirits, like Arthur himself. That is the real heart of the story, but it’s not fully developed. The Claus family is like any other, except they deliver gifts on Christmas and employ more elves than Walmart has crazy consumer wranglers on Black Friday. 

And they’re not the perfect family either. Different generations have different opinions. Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), Santa (Jim Broadbent), and Steve (Hugh Laurie) all have their own interpretations of what it is to be Santa. And when they’re together, it’s entertaining to watch them bicker and the power struggle over the role of Santa emerges. Arthur (James McAvoy), however, just wants to get that one gift to one little girl even if it means exhausting all the resources of the North Pole.

Unlike many other Aardman productions, Arthur Christmas seems to be missing a solid smart story. Much of the story hinges on the little girl believing in Santa, but it’s more about Arthur being a worrywart should the situation present itself. The lack of concrete storytelling focuses more than the satisfaction of materialism rather the believing in make-believe. When you pull back all the flair, this is probably one of the simplest stories out there. 

All that needs to be done is get the gift to the girl, but along the way there are obstacles; perhaps too many obstacles that drag the middle section along. Arthur Christmas can easily be cut down a good twenty minutes once the padding is taken out and the story tightened. Landing in one wrong town after another gets awfully repetitive, but it does give the relationship between Arthur and Grandsanta to emerge.

Arthur Christmas had the potential to be another addition of family holiday canon. But unfortunately there are just too many things out of place. Sure there is enough humor to go around, specifically British humor, which many audiences might not grasp the first time and its animated CG is visually decent to look at, but where’s the tradition? Arthur Christmas is a great way to get back into the holiday spirit, but it’ll only carry that spirit for so long.         

GRADE: B- (7/10)
This review is also available on Blu-Ray.com