Film review: Arthur Christmas (U)

AS A STUDIO, the Bristol-based Aardman Animation has acquired a reputation for making charming, universally loved work with an idiosyncratic British sensibility. Based on tactile, handcrafted output such as the Wallace & Gromit films, Chicken Run or some of the studio’s TV work, that reputation may be well deserved; factor in Aardman’s tentative attempts to break into the lucrative CG animation market, however, and it’s a different story. Debut effort Flushed Away was hamstrung by a desire to marry the endearingly odd-looking characteristics of claymation with the kind of slick, pop culture-referencing style of Aardman’s then partner DreamWorks. That the result ended up feeling like a film with an identity crisis perhaps accounted for its underperformance at the box office and its lack of staying power in the hearts of animation fans.

Five years on, Aardman’s second CG effort is even worse. Bandwagon jumping the 3D craze just as audiences are starting to tail off, Arthur Christmas serves up a bland, incident-packed adventure story set around the silly season that’s so thoroughly lacking the distinctive charm, wit and heart of Aardman’s best work that it could have been made by anyone.

Liberally borrowing plot elements from Monsters Inc, it’s a yuletide caper that imagines the business of Santa Claus and present delivery as a kind of super-efficient industrial process in which Santa (Jim Broadbent) has become little more than a benevolent CEO figurehead for a multinational-like corporation, one that deploys armies of ninja-like elves and the latest sound barrier-breaking spaceship technology to ensure no child in the world goes without a present on Christmas morning. Reindeers, sleighs and magic dust are a thing of the past, but so too – apparently – is the spirit of Christmas, with the drive for efficiency taking the fun and meaning out of the day as Santa’s number one son Steve (Hugh Laurie) hones the operation to perfection in his desire for the top job.

Story problems start almost immediately thanks to the plot hinging on the notion that a character like Steve, who has already been established as an obsessive perfectionist, wouldn’t deploy the vast resources at his disposal to ensure every present is delivered and no toys could somehow slip through the net.

When that situation does arise, it’s left to Santa’s clumsy, idealistic, Christmas-loving youngest son Arthur (James McAvoy) to save the day. Employed by his dad to read every letter to Santa that arrives at the North Pole, he’s got a more personal connection to the kids expecting presents than his older brother, who tends to thinks of them as serial numbers, the end point of a long production line – though that still doesn’t quite justify his unwillingness to quickly re-establish his perfect track record.

Somewhat speciously, Arthur is also apparently charged with answering every letter, and so, having already made written promises to this about-to-be-excluded little girl – and having already tried to allay her practically minded fears about the possible non-existence of Santa in the process – he feels he has no choice but to deliver the present himself. Egged on by a grandfather (Bill Nighy) eager to prove that the old ways still work, Arthur teams up with the old codger and a young, over-eager elf called Bryony (Ashley Jensen) to deliver this single present the old-fashioned way.

It’s not exactly a high-stakes mission, but that doesn’t stop the film treating it like one. Needless obstacles derail their progress at every stage, sending them across the globe, stranding them in deserts, on beaches and, at one point, literally sending them round in circles, which feels very much like what the film is doing as it tries to stretch out its weak premise to a feature length-friendly 90 minutes. There’s an extraneous UFO subplot too, in which they’re mistaken for aliens by an Iowan farmer and end up with an international military taskforce on their tail – something that feels like both a sop to the American market and a desperate attempt to inject forward motion into the film by adding some threat to the entire Christmas operation.

But that’s the film’s standard operating procedure. Director Sarah Smith and her co-writer Peter Baynham (both veterans of brilliant British TV such as Brass Eye and The Armando Iannucci Shows) fill scene after scene with chaotic action that seems designed to get their money’s worth out of the 3D technology but doesn’t connect on any other level.

The voice cast do their best with limited material, but none of the characters is very memorable and in the end, with nothing particularly engaging, heartfelt or meaningful to hold on to, all the bright colours, funny accents and endless set-pieces are little more than cinematic Christmas wrapping: pretty to look at, functional and entirely disposable.

Rating: **