I am afraid to say that I am disappointed in myself. As a massive fan of Aardman films I have only just got round to seeing their latest and fourth appearance in the cinema “Arthur Christmas”, their second CGI offering and the first of their new deal with Sony Pictures.
Today I finally righted the wrong of me not seeing it and I’m so glad I did.
But first there was the meal and a little side to this review. Today was the first time I tried a meal at Chiquito, a Mexican version of Nandos with less of an obsession with chicken. Having picked up the tickets early from Vue - £8 a ticket???? and they tell you where to sit??? – I wandered over to the restaurant and grabbed a drink whilst I waited for my parents. After the barman decided to spill the first attempt at the Mexican Milky Way - Amaretto, Baileys, chocolate liqueur, Eristoff Vodka, milk & cream, topped with whipped cream and a dusting of chocolate as their website says – knocking the blender over and covering himself in milky goodness (steady!) I managed to enjoy the £4.99 drink which was as nice as any of the Baileys-based cocktails you get at the chains and reasonably priced and sized.
With my parents having now arrived we could sit down to enjoy the meal. We were treated to some complimentary tortillas with tomato salsa that were like over-sized Doritos but obviously more home-made, but perhaps not enough salsa to really make it fair on the whole party, with every spooning up of salsa seriously depleting the pot.
For starters I remained as boring as ever and went with loaded potato skins but for £4.99 there was just a disappointing two skins, though they were tasty and the topping of bacon and sour cream was delicious, with a pot of barbecue sauce on the size. They were, ultimately, not as generous as the equally tasty skins you get at, say, Frankie and Bennys. The similarly priced chilli poppers and slightly cheaper duck taquito that my parents had were equally as tasty but equally as titchy.
Onto the main course and I’d definitely hit lucky with my choice of my favourite Mexican dishes, fajitas. I plumped for the sirloin steak version which was delivered on a sizzling plate at my chosen medium-rare with onion, tomato and pepper salad-thing, and was matched up with three pots of sour cream, tomato salsa, half-a-dozen fajita wraps, a plate of lettuce and cheese and some coleslaw I’d ordered as a side as I was a pig. Though a hefty £15.99 the amount of food there did justify its price and the amount of food was just right for a hefty appetite. Perhaps I would have liked a little bit more cheese and lettuce but it wasn’t a deal breaker. The food was served sizzling hot and at the end I was more than satisfied with the amount. The burger that my mum enjoyed seemed a fair size but my dad’s southern fried chicken perhaps not so much, but they were all very tasty.
Overall the bill came to just over £65 which for three people including drinks isn’t bad. The atmosphere of the restaurant was pleasant with enough Mexican pictures to convince you the brand has been anywhere near the land of Tequila – as much as Frankie and Bennys tries to make itself look like an Italian-American diner, but thankfully Chiquito doesn’t try to teach you Mexican in the loos – with some Christmas songs slotted into the more Mexican offerings, plus the service was friendly and relatively prompt considering it was reasonably quiet, plus for those who want to delve further, the toilets were immaculate.
I think if they could plump up the size of the starters and learn not to pour cocktails over themselves then it would be almost a flawless meal.
Now onto the main reason I’m writing this review: ‘Arthur Christmas’. So it’s over to Vue, where they charge a lot for the showings (though, to be fair, not much more than Cineworld, my hang out in Bradford) and assign you seats (unlike Cineworld). However, with the screening being relatively quiet, we moved seats to a better sitting position mid-film so as not to damage our necks staring up at the screen. And for once the kids in front of us were well behaved and quiet, which made for a refreshing change in a kids screening.
Before we could get through to the actual theme there were obviously the adverts to endure. Vue, it seems, may be wanting you not to record the film. At least 1/3rd of the slides of the opening slide show were about not recording and then some disc jockey from Minster FM came onto repeat the message. Fine, got the message. Not that I’d be recording a film that’s been out for six weeks anyway; it will have already been torrented to hell.
Also before the feature presentation there was some more Aardman goodness with a new trailer for Pirates!, their next feature film, this time stop-motion, coming out next year. I’d only seen the first trailer and this one certainly expanded the premise of the movie and it looks hilarious, so can’t wait for that. They also did an extra advert to promote – yes, you guessed it – not pirating films, which was a great addition especially with the extra work it would have been of stop-motion.
So, ‘Arthur Christmas’. It tells the story of the latest in the line of the Christmas family with Malcolm Christmas approaching his seventieth festive delivery but it’s his son Steve who is the main contributor to the delivery of presents to children all around the world, a military-minded man voiced by Hugh Laurie, masterminding a hi-tech team of elves launched from an ‘Independence Day’-style spaceship sleigh who deliver the presents. Malcolm’s other son, Steve’s brother, Arthur – voiced by James McAvoy - is a clumsy, but well-meaning person who deals with the letter writing. When an elf drops a present after the completion of Christmas it’s up to Arthur, Malcolm’s father - the oldest living Father Christmas - and an old sleigh to get this one present to the only child not to receive a gift on Christmas Day before sunrise when she wakes up.
What follows the early exposition is a top-form pastiche of military, spy and alien films. Scenes are captioned by locations, times and witty statistics, with an over-arching focus on gadgets, military spoofs and tongue-in-cheek action pieces. And, as with any Aardman film, the attention to detail is immense with some many on-screen and background visual jokes it’s a shoe-in for DVD purchase to catch them all, with everything from funny notes, to background signs, to even a Shaun The Sheep on the floor.
The 97 minutes of the film shoots by. The script is as inventive as anything we’ve had so far from Aardman with the opening Christmas delivery montage fast-paced and incredibly tight and choreographed as the elves deliver the presents, with many tongue-in-cheek nods to mobile phones and modern living in the pursuit of delivering the presents. The use of gadgets as seen in the Wallace and Gromit serious is prevalent here and the sheer Britishness of the movie shines through, but without it seeming as forced as in, say, ‘Chicken Run’. And, as far as realism goes with a team of hundreds of elves, it does offer a plausible and well-thought-out explanation of how so many toys get delivered in such a short space of time.
Much of the film is taken up with Arthur and his grandfather attempting to deliver this one last present on the original sled, with some great pastiches to alien films, rolling news and the same modern-but-retro technology employed in the Wallace and Gromit films.
There are a few jokes here and there that fall flat and it does seem about thirty minutes in that the film has lost its direction (but it soon regains it) and is coming to a premature conclusion but in the most it’s a laugh-out-loud film with some great unexpected twists in the plot. The voice acting is superb and the animation very high quality, especially with the massive scenes of elves at times. The CGI also captures Aardman’s style of characters, but perhaps not as much as in ‘Flushed Away’. Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy and Ashley Jensen in particular all do some great voice acting but the whos-who of famous names all contribute to an excellent film. The film does wander close to sugary-sweet sentiment at its conclusion but it is genuinely touching and I’m not afraid to say that a tear did nearly come to my eyes at the end.
Filled with the Aardman magic we’ve come to expect, it’s a funny, touching, clever family film that is suitable for all ages with some very inventive set pieces and more visual jokes than you can shake an elf at. Sure, the plot line isn’t the most inventive in that Christmas has to be saved when something goes wrong, but it’s so well delivered you can forget this and enjoy the film and the scenes within it.
I’m not sure if it will become a Christmas classic but it’s a film that all the family can enjoy and there’s so much detail to enjoy in the CGI and visual jokes. I think at times it might be a little too uninteresting for very young kids but it’s a film not to be missed. A top festive film from Aardman and Sony and it bodes well for Pirates! next year.
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