92% Arthur Christmas

All Critics (113) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (104) | Rotten (9)

With a clever script that successfully updates many Christmas myths and dialogue that crackles with sophisticated wit, this movie offers the kind of pre-holiday experience that parents and children alike will appreciate.

Everything you see in Arthur Christmas is fashioned in the service of telling a story ... brilliantly

The results are not only funny and fresh, but represent a new way of tackling the whole yuletide paradigm: Santa as a high-tech hereditary monarchy.

For the kids, the action is always lively and, for the rest of us, the dialogue has a witty and even caustic edge.

The surprise gift of the season: a sharp, savvy holiday comedy that doesn't get its laughs at the expense of those who start to glow in the early days of December. It's a most entertaining package indeed.

Good for the kids, good for the parents, and good for Christmas.

The film does have a nice ending. It just takes a little too long to get there.

The holiday season is an emotional rollercoaster for many reasons and Arthur Christmas does a neat job of exploring many of them while still being both heart-warming and wonderfully entertaining

The best Christmas movies have a kind of humility about them that's lacking here ...

A scene in which zebras, elephants and other African animals float like balloons in the air after an accidental dusting of Santa's flying-reindeer magic is close to surreal poetry.

'Arthur Christmas' gets off to a terrific start by letting inquisitive viewers know how the guy in the red suit manages to get all those toys to two billion kids on a single evening.

Arthur Christmas an early holiday gift.

The under-10 audience I saw it with were entranced, and, remarkably enough by itself, so were their parents. Huzzah, Aardman!

Here's hoping this becomes another family Christmas classic deserves. A veddy British take on the "monarchy" of Santa, this is an inventive, sweet-natured adventure about the importance of delivering a gift to the one child who was missed by Santa.

...a disappointing Christmas movie that never quite comes together. There just isn't enough Christmas cheer.

The idea of a Santa with a non-American accent will probably irk the same stateside folks who bristle at the thought of a non-Caucasian Jesus, but the mostly British cast has been carefully selected.

Not a bad little Christmas fable. The Aardman Animation wit is in full-effect anytime Bill Nighy's great Grandsanta is onscreen.

This is Aardman and they know better than to go cheap or easy. And by taking the smarter, sweeter route, they've created what should rightfully become a Christmas classic.

It's just plain charming. And between you and me, I got misty at the end too.

The movie fails utterly at coming up with a story that merits all the eye candy.

The animators lure us in with clever jokes and ingenious visuals and then sucker-punch us by revealing the characters' surprising emotional depths.

Arthur Christmas does something few Christmas family movies have done over the last several years: it makes them fun again. Kids will love it and adults will feel like kids while watching it.

Arthur Christmas is more like gift-wrapped plane tickets rather than a hankies-and-undies combo.

For households where Santa pays a visit, this is a delightful addition to the holiday season.

An absolutely disastrous piece of work...

More Critic Reviews

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/arthur_christmas/

john beck john beck mariska hargitay gmcr ohio news caracal beef wellington