Arthur Christmas 2011
I do not remember this movie coming out though it got respectable reviews. It was made by Aaardman, the studio that made Wallace and Gromit, but it is computer animated. It is kind of exhausting. It is long and has a lot of frenetic energy, maybe partly because it is 3D. The characters are exhausting, including Arthur, the current Santa Clause's younger son, who is completely incompetent and clumsy and in general a danger to himself and everyone around him. His older brother is the one who runs the high tech industrial operation of worldwide toy delivery. Santa Clause's father, the retired Santa Clause, is similar to Arthur, just a complete loose cannon who can't do anything right either. All of the characters are given such substantial flaws that it is hard to like any of them. There is a very tight time constraint to the movie so I just wanted them to make it and a lot of time, tons of it, is spent wringing hands about an overlooked delivery, and then making lots of wrong turns on the way. It might be fun for some, but for me it was very frustrating and exhausting. It is like they took a 30-minute Christmas special and kept packing in more stuff until they got to a feature length movie. There are parts that are great and some of the humor is sharp, but a lot of it is just this sugar rush of energy and mayhem. Some of the characters, including an elf, were a little hard to understand. I think it could get better on rewatching as you worry less about the problems in the movie and just go along for the ride, so I am still giving it a B.
Written: 28 Dec 2024
Owned on: Digital