James McAvoyas ArthurThe story
About Arthur Christmas
Father Christmas's delivery run has become a vast covert operation, flown out of a hidden North Pole base and managed with military precision by his efficient elder son. When one child's present is accidentally left behind, his well-meaning, accident-prone younger brother Arthur refuses to write it off and sets out to get it there before dawn. He ends up crossing the world in his grandfather's long-retired wooden sleigh, with the clock against him.
The CineClaus verdict
Aardman doing Christmas at scale, and the scale is the joke: a military-grade delivery operation with a family succession row bolted underneath it. It is very funny about competence, and funnier still about how badly families handle it.
The animation is generous, the gags land at both heights, and the ending earns its sentiment rather than simply demanding it. One of the best Christmas films of the century so far, and still oddly underwatched in Britain.
The family desk
Can the kids watch?
Our take: fine from about five. Fast, loud and occasionally tense in the way a chase is tense, but nothing frightening and nothing that needs explaining afterwards.
BBFC advice: Mild threat.
Content advice & accessibility
- Where the advice comes from
- The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).
- Our age guidance
- Editorial, separate from the official PG certificate, and never looser than it.
