Arthur Christmas

2011 97 min ★ 6.8 Drama, Animation, Family, Comedy

For hundreds of years, the Claus family has delegated the title "Santa" to a chosen few of its members, which can be passed down upon retirement. Each Christmas, Santa and his vast army of highly trained elves produce gifts and distribute them around the world in a one-night high-tech operation. However, when one of 600 million children to receive a gift from Santa on Christmas Eve is missed, it is deemed ‘acceptable’ to all but one—Arthur Claus, the current Santa’s misfit son deemed ineligible for the title, who executes an unauthorised rookie mission to get the last present halfway around the globe before dawn on Christmas morning.

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Cast

James McAvoy

Arthur (voice)

Hugh Laurie

Steve (voice)

Bill Nighy

Grandsanta (voice)

Jim Broadbent

Santa (voice)

Imelda Staunton

Mrs Santa (voice)

Ashley Jensen

Bryony (voice)

Marc Wootton

Peter (voice)

Laura Linney

North Pole Computer (voice)

Eva Longoria

Chief De Silva (voice)

Ramona Marquez

Gwen (voice)

Details

Director

Sarah Smith

Screenplay

Sarah Smith

Tagline

"Ever wonder how 2 Billion presents get delivered all in 1 night?"

Status

Released

Original Language

EN

Budget

$10,000,000

Revenue

$151,300,000

Production

Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman

Reviews

R

r96sk

December 18, 2020

★ 7/10

A good watch. I had a fine time watching <em>'Arthur Christmas'</em>. The plot is a little light, with a fairly simple event taking a relative while to resolve itself, but it's still a pleasant festive animated film - with neat animation. There are a number of familiar names on the voice cast, too many to name in actual fact. My personal standout is Hugh Laurie as Steven, though James McAvoy...

C

CinemaSerf

December 24, 2022

★ 7/10

It is actually quite hard to find innovative ways to tell Santa stories now, but this one does do quite well on that score. It all centres on Santa's now almost entirely automated delivery process using a sleigh clearly inspired by the starship "Enterprise". Horror of horrors, though, when the youngest member of the Claus family - the eponymous "Arthur" - discovers that one young girl isn't going ...