Arthur Christmas

Arthur is the perfect lead for a Christmas film: joyful, innocent, and goofy with a touch of sensitivity and determination. He carries the film into above-average Christmas fare with support from his hilarious English grandpa.

You know you have a problem when every supporting character is more interesting than the titular one. What I did enjoy was its humour and relentlessly over-the-top spirit, endowing an otherwise typical affair with an extravagantly festive edge. Yey !

Beautiful animation and cute. I was put off by the alien-like space ship delivery system using a super futuristic high tech explanation. The extended Santa family was also a very odd addition. Son Arthur was a sweet sometimes bumbling character with the best of intentions. His brother more of a military man. A feeble absentminded Santa. And an out of touch old retired Grandpa Santa. Strange cast of characters indeed. Sometimes funny, and entertaining but a quite unconventional Christmas story.

A unique take on the Santa story that cleverly contorts it into the realm of realism; the high-tech vs. old school, productivity vs. personal touch themes that arise from this fun setting make the premise even more engaging (and hilarious; Nighy's "back in my day" Grandsanta is a riot). A simple adventure plot is constructed from here with more than enough wacky humour and slapstick to keep you smiling, and with fairly nuanced family character studies thrown in to add some heart too.

The problem facing nearly every Santa movie is that they are often about faith and believing in the impossible - a message that always rings false when propagating Santa. Arthur Christmas gracefully and daringly avoids this by tackling disillusionment in those we idolize (Santa is depicted here as unthoughtful and uninvolved). The film argues that one should, instead, put their faith in what they know to be right or true, rather than in the fallibility of another person, no matter how esteemed.

Not bad for a Christmas movie. Usually they are pretty generic and boring. At least this was something new and interesting, but in the end, still predictable. Some of the stuff on the sled felt stressful, and not really in a good way. Also I don't quite understand what the message it. "Technology is evil"? You can tell it was written by people afraid of change. The way Steve was doing things was a lot more efficient and he should be applauded, not made out to be somewhat of a villain.

Well, this old-school, optimistic and good-hearted animation fails at almost every point -- from the lack of charisma of the main character, silly, just too silly, to the completely lazy and uneven script. Come on, Aardman, come on...

There is something almost hilariously fascistic about how Santa and his little ubermensch elves run around in their little outfits like stormtroopers fast roping into people's homes to deliver gifts. This is essentially a tale about royalty and succession. Arthur is the goofy little bitch son who isn't worthy to be the Santa heir whereas the brother is the favored stud prince with the flavor taster christmas goatee. The brother's goatee is the most disturbing thing in an animated film.

An undeniably warm and charming childrens movie. Well animated, well voiced, with plenty of silliness for the little'uns and plenty of sly, fleeting one-lines for the big'uns! Entertaining.

Energetic. Funny. Sweet.

Instant Christmas classic! Arthur Christmas is a much needed supplement to the very weak genre of Christmas films. A good and sweat story with beautiful animations.

This is a fun Christmas movie with a nice, original script. There is a nice range of actors who do the voice work in this film. There are some funny moments as well in this story. I would recommend this fun movie.

An interesting take on the legend of Santa Claus, heartwarming and very funny. Great voice acting!

Probably the best animated movie from 2011, and for sure one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies. Arthur Christmas manages to serve up some good old Christmas cheer, a good sense of humor, great writing about a dysfunctional Santa Clause family, and talented voice acting. Underrated movie in my opinion. If you haven't seen this you need to.

It was a good movie. Obviously it was made for kids but are watchable for adults. Why? It had jokes which many movies don't have these days. It was really funny. Especially the part when I saw these words on a sled - "Chimney lub". I was laughing my ass off at that. Adults will get a point of majority jokes there.

Awkward animation and clunky voice acting, despite having a decent cast. The humour is obvious and feels uncertain in delivery. The clumsy, unpopular dork turned saviour is such a tired cliche, and the first of many witnessed in this middle-of-the-road, festive flick. I honestly don't get why this has status beyond its connection with Aardman. Oh, and a word on continuity: is it Arthur Christmas, or Arthur Claus, and if either of those, why are his parents Mr and Mrs Santa?

Creative and with a ton of heart - the definition of Aardman studios.

Arthur Christmas is delightful, cute and charming along with a solid comedy.

Rewatch. Never heard of it until I found it at a Wal-Mart $2 bin in 2018 but it's become a family staple. I liked that the brother wasn't a stereotypical villain. The wackiness and the world-building made up for its shortcoming of not much going on in the background for rewatches, which happens to most non-Pixar animated movies. Fav scenes: Arthur leaving a series of doors open down a long hallway and it comes up again with a polar bear getting into the barn and facing down an elf.

Surprisingly fun. Really liked the world building. Surprised there wasn't a sequel but it looks like it didn't do great at the box office. Wasn't a fan of the ending, but that didn't wreck it.

The fact that I preferred Steve's cold hard efficiency over Arthur's well-meaning but bumbling and naive earnestness means something's not quite right with this otherwise decently made animated film.

I thought this was a horrible Christmas tale, trying to force certain morals on us that just don't make too much sense.

Not particularly memorable. Arthur is a fine character and the movie is fine, just not particularly good.

It's very funny and fast-paced, and it has a a clever interpretation of the Santa myth, but it also has problematic gender roles and a racist joke involving an Indian elf in the IT department, and for those reasons I would feel uncomfortable showing this movie to any kids.

Awesome!!

A really cute Christmas movie with fun voice acting from great stars such as Jim Broadbent, James McAvoy, Bill Nighy and Hugh Laurie. My only complaint about this movie is the over-use of the hyper militarized elves that have been done before in other animated films to show how high tech and subversive the Operation Christmas can be. Granted, it was quite funny at times. I really loved the gift wrapping elf, she was great and the crazy old Grandsanta. A cute film for sure for the holidays.

This is a solid fun Christmas movie that fails to be a classic due mostly to its uneven presentation. I watch this every other year or so and it puts a smile on my face so I can't complain.

201213 Seen it every year since 2012 and I can still laugh at gramps every time. 121224 89 Very funny and a good story. Will become a Christmas regular, I'm sure.

Surprisingly good. A very new and refreshing story about Christmass which was charming, warm and modern all at the same time.

The obligatory children's-film family-conflict here is -annoyingly recognisably voiced- aristocrats arguing over the succession of a multi-national. It's a militaristic combination of NASA, Amazon and the sacred mosque (https://youtu.be/roowHfnpmb8) staffed by dilligent, hardworking elves who -obviously- can't do anything without their masters. Despite pretending to be all Christmas/family sentimentality the winner is the one who helps them reach "100% efficiency!" -the true meaning of...

Delightful family film. Who knows if it will ever become a holiday classic, but it has every right to be.

One of the funniest animations ive ever seen, great jokes which are definitely intended for an adult audience... characters are more developed than most movies ive seen in 2011

Arthur Christmas is a great Christmas film that delivers action, laughs & a ton of heart. While the premise is simple, the well-written dialogue makes up for it, even if the start is a tad childish. There are plenty of jokes & references that will entertain adults, with themes of perserverance & doing what's right for the right reasons that are relevant for all ages. Making the central conflict, the family disfunction, due to ego was clever. The animation is good & the voice acting is excellent.

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You know, when it comes down to it, this movie actually is a real damn good Christmas movie. I mean, there are precious few great Christmas films, but this is certainly something I'd watch again in December.

This all star cast led, James Bond style movie is crammed so full of cheesy corny moments I felt bloated and ill. Failed to live up to the hype.

When Santa lets Arthur down, though, it's still a brutal blow. Indeed, our hero almost gives up on his quest to "save Christmas" for the little giftless girl. But then he has an epiphany: It's not about Santa the man, but about Santa the ideal. Santa is bigger than any one fallible father can be. And as long as that ideal remains true and pure, the gift-giving spirit of Christmas survives. (pluggedin.com)

The film is so good-natured that it's easy to ignore its sentimentality.

Surprisingly good, especially when you know absolutely how it's going to end. For me, the highlight was the first ten or so minutes highlighting the Impossible Mission-type activities. It slows down a little after that and delves a little further into the personal lives of the North Pole crew than I expected we'd go.... I can see putting this in the rotation with Charlie Brown and Christmas Vacation each year.

No, I just. I could not buy the premise of a high-tech santa and MI elves. Yuck.

Christmas movies have been a bit lacking the last few years. Think this one has earned a place in the perennials along with the first two Die Hards and Gremlins.

"Old-school holiday goodwill trumps modern high-tech impersonality in Arthur Christmas." - Nick Schager

Maybe I'll get more out of this when I rewatch it someday, but I didn't gel with it as much as I wanted to. The whole Santa & his elves as a military thing is brilliant, loved that aspect. Arthur was...fine? He started out really annoying but by the end he'd grown on me. I appreciated that there's really no villain here, just a set of people with varying degrees of questionable moral codes. That added a nice element to what could've easily been a way-too-cartoony movie.

loved it, got a little predictable towards end, but that's really being harsh

Very cute movie. Good to play throughout the rotation of Christmas movies.

I'm a sucker for Christmas flicks but this is totally charmless, humorless and full of unlikable characters.

A unique and interesting take on the Santa lore. An easy recommendation and sure to be a new addition to my yearly Christmas watch list.

Horrible high tech military Santa that's takes all the magic away in place of explainable scientific tech

Any Christmas movie with a shout out to Canada is good in my book.

Fantastic Christmas story. I nearly laughed off my ass.

I don't like the fact that the Santas are mostly A-holes.

It's fine. There's traces of the Aardman magic in it, but it's a bit generic.

Beautiful, imaginative and far more involving than a lot of recent Hollywood animation.

Less could have been more. More overloaded and "clever" than good.