Arthur Christmas Review - A Festive Gift of a Film

Although it may still be over a month until the most festive day of the year, it is very much Christmas time, at least commercially, and Aardman set the mood this year, rolling out the year's first Christmas film, Arthur Christmas. The British animation giants behind Wallace and Gromit, famous for their use of stop-motion, release Arthur Christmas as their fourth feature film, (and their second CGI animated film) and their first under the Sony Pictures banner, after their deal with DreamWorks ended a few years back, and, as we have all come to expect from Aardman, the film was funny, charming, thoughtful, warm and quintessentially British, yet being a broad, entertaining and generally great family to the extent that it will appeal to people all over the world this holiday season.

Arthur Christmas Unwrapped Tomorrow

Aardman's latest feature, the Christmassy collaboration with Sony Pictures Animation, Arthur Christmas arrives in cinemas over here in the UK tomorrow (whereas, US readers will have to wait until the 23rd), and, as such, Aardman and Sony have swamped us with clips.

Above, we have highlights of the star studded premiere of the film. In addition to the creative talent from the studio - director and writer, Sarah Smith, and Aardman head honchos, David Sproxton, Peter Lord and Nick Park - the premiere was attended by members of the film's cast including Bill Nighy (Grandsanta), Ashley Jensen (Bryony) and Outnumbered's Ramona Marquez (Gwen). In addition to some new clips of the film, the video also show's Nighy and Jensen helping to turn on the famed Regent Street Lights.

If this magical event encapsulates the film as a whole, we're all in for a treat when it hits cinemas tomorrow. But, speaking of clips, Sony also rolled out a plethora of new clips from the movie (below), but, be warned some clips are a little spoiler heavy.

 

 

  

I particularly loved that last clip, 'Elf Delivery', it was jaw dropping, both in the ambition of the story, and in terms of the beautiful animation. The film, from these clips at least, looks funny, gorgeous and touching. I can't wait to see Arthur Christmas (I'll be heading out to see it next weekend, so look out for a review around then).

Aardman News 2

More Aardman news concerning their upcoming 2011 CGI Christmas film, Arthur Christmas. Set in the ultra high tech North Pole on Christmas Eve, the film stars James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and Ashley Jensen as hapless and eager son of Santa Arthur, his older and more capable brother Steve, Santa, Grandsanta (the grumpy and cranky father of Santa), Mrs. Santa and lowly elf Bryony respectively.

The film casts many stars who are also in the upcoming Starz Animation film Gnomeo and Juliet, what really caught my attention is that the film is co-composed by the fantastic Michael Giacchino, a staple of Pixar, who is currently compsoing Cars 2.

The film sounds fantastic and you can read the full article here.