Arthur Christmas

For most of my life, the annual Christmas movie was, A Christmas Story.  Who didn't love the adventures of Ralphie in his quest for the "Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time" while everyone tells him that he'll "soot his eye out."  The quotes and the movie are sheer poetry.

I never thought that my favourite Christmas movie would ever stop being my favourite Christmas movie.  Now it's a very close second, slightly behind Bad Santa.  Yeah, I know, how could you go from a movie that uses the "f" word once, to a movie whose dialogue is based in profanity?  I don't know.  But if you look beneath the profanity, Bad Santa is a sweet movie about friendship, redemption and finding the spirit of Christmas, but for adults.  Humour me.  

So, since 1983's A Christmas Story, there have been dozens of pretenders that have tried to de-throne the champ.  Many have tried, feebly.  Among the pretenders: Earnest Saves Christmas, all the Santa Claus(e) movies, Fred Claus, Surviving Christmas (which, by the way, filmschoolrejects.com picks to be the worst Christmas movie ever).  The list of bad Christmas movies is just an endless list of... um... bad Christmas movies.  To be honest, I can’t think of any good ones.  Elf was funny only because Peter Dinklage beats the crap out of Will Ferrell.  Peter Dinklage was really great in The Station Agent AND there aren’t enough movies where Will Ferrell gets the crap beat out of him.

Oh yeah, Arthur Christmas. I first watched what was called the "teaser."  If by tease they mean, annoy, then it was successful.  It told me nothing and I didn't care.  The theatrical trailer gave much more.  The gist of it is the answer to the question: how does Santa deliver all those toys? Well Santa's amazing hi-tech Christmas machine is how every kid gets presents in one night.  Like all hi-tech, however, there is always a glitch - kind of like Microsoft Windows freezing for no reason at any given moment.  This glitch is that one kid doesn't get a present.  So, Arthur Christmas uses the old-school method, reindeer and sleigh (which doesn't make sense, at least in the trailer) because how did the old school method ever deliver all those billions of presents?  Well, he saves Christmas by getting the present to the one kid.  I'm guessing that most of the story will be the “humourous journey.”  Yes, it's all in the trailer.

I hope kids enjoy this movie, because it's important for kids to believe in something.  Me? I believe that I will likely never see this film.  No risk of de-throning the champ from this one.