WITH THE VOICES OF: James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton

WRITTEN BY: Peter Baynham and Sarah Smith

DIRECTED BY: Sarah Smith and Barry Cook

So, I definitely did not watch this movie during the Holiday season. Sometimes though, halfway through the year, you can enjoy a nice holiday pick-up, like a reminder that Christmas is coming. Arthur Christmas was a nice reminder of that. Somewhere nestled between other Christmas classics like  Polar Express and How The Grinch Stole Christmas is now Arthur Christmas, despite its depressingly low box office. Only 48 million? Really? This film deserved better than that.

The story follows Arthur (McAvoy), a young man who really loves Christmas, and still has the spirit in him. His father (Broadbent) is Santa, and his older brother Steve (Laurie) is next in line to replace him, and is also the head of mission control. The thing about Steve though, is that he’s like a soldier at missile command, not like the warm and fuzzy Santa we would expect. There’s also Ms Claus (Staunton) and Grandsanta (Nighy). After completing a successful Christmas drop, a present is discovered which means that a child was forgotten. Arthur can’t let the child go without her present, so he enlists the help of Grandsanta so they can sneak away in the old reindeer powered sleigh (instead of Steve’s UFO military based contraption that Santa currently uses). Along for the ride is a really eager elf, Bryony. Together, the will save Christmas for this one child, and wake up the entire world while doing it.

It’s a pretty good holiday film. I enjoyed it more than How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the Jim Carrey version), honestly, and that was a huge success. There are some interesting bits in there, jokes for adults and such that will keep them interested, and the film is silly enough for kids to enjoy it too. I don’t know why the film didn’t do better at the box office, because it’s really a fairly enjoyable movie. I recommend.

FINAL GRADE: A-