Review of Arthur Christmas (2011) by Patricia W — 10 Dec 2017
Christmas has been a technological, highly organised affair where Santa is a figure head and his son Steve and the elves do all the work. Arthur, his younger son is awkward and clumsy but when a little girl's present gets left behind he must deliver the present and keep the spirit of Christmas alive.
Arthur Christmas has a star studded cast of voice actors, James McAvoy voices Arthur, embodying the joy and naïve innocence of the character and injecting a lot of emotion into the more dramatic and poignant moments in the film. Bill Nighy is very funny as Grand Santa and the British cast is nicely rounded out with Hugh Laurie as Steve and Jim Broadbent as Santa.
The whole premise of the film is nice and the plot is quite solid, starting with a little girl writing to Santa, to the present being lost and the quest to deliver in to her in time for Christmas morning. The pace is fairly consistent, although it does start to drag a little towards the end and the film starts to feel longer than it is. The jokes and criticisms of how technological and clinical the present delivery system has become is also quite well done and the conclusion of the film is very charming.
This is a film that will certainly appeal to children whilst also being entertaining for adults and is a nice addition to the holiday film genre.
This review of Arthur Christmas (2011) was written by Patricia W on 10 Dec 2017.
Arthur Christmas has generally received positive reviews.
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