159, Arthur Christmas

I know, I know.  Its only November and the fist Christmas movie is among us.  Made by Aardman (The people behind Wallace & Grommit) this magical mystery movie takes us all the way to the North Pole and the military style operation that takes place on every Xmas Eve to ensure the safe delivery of about 2 billion presents in a window of about 6 hours.

There is no denying that the beginning of this movie is ace - We start on Christmas Eve with Santa en-route in a UFO style sleigh with the help of about 10,000 bungee jumping elf's who under Santa's lead manage to spectacularly deliver the worlds gifts in about 4hrs, overseen by a hoard of mission control elf's and their Tech Supervisor, Santa's oldest Son and heir, Steve.

Our Hero, Arthur (voiced by James McAvoy) manages the "Santa's Letters" department and apart from a few elf's, still sees Christmas as a magical time rather than a military op where numbers count and not the little kiddiwinkies!

Its pointless going on about the level and quality of the animation, obviously its amazing - very smooth and lifelike with great character effects and a epic layout of Santa's grotto but as with all animations its the script and voices that also make the movie and to say this has a few A-lister's is an understatement.

In addition to McAvoy in the title role keep your ears out for Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Ashley Jensen, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Michael Palin, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Robbie Coltrane, Joan Cusack, Andy Serkis and Dominic West...........just to name a few!

See what I mean - its as much fun for the adults to spot the star as it is for the kids to watch the movie.

What does help is its also a sweet little story that will tug on the heartstrings especially in the run up too Christmas and its easy to see the subliminal messages throughout of Christmas becoming an "operation" rather than a time of family and magic and it wraps itself up very nicely at the end with smiles throughout.

As far as Christmas movies go this ones pretty good by me but make sure you have kids to take and if not, borrow some (with parents permission obviously!) as you will look out of place watching this without them.

Merry Christmas! xx (I know its November but where's your Christmas Spirit!)