Sarah Smith
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Folks who worship at the altar of Aardman Animations as much as they do at the temple of Pixar (raising my hand here) will quickly realize — say, 20 minutes into the movie — that Arthur Christmas won't come close to matching the giddy heights of the British studio's Chicken Run or Wallace & Gromit films.
Their first release, 2000's " Chicken Run ," was quirky and heartwarming in the best sense of both terms, while 2005's " Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit " and 2006's " Flushed Away " left something to be desired, over calculated slapsticks with a quarter of the charm intended.
Aardman's sterling cinematic track record includes the award-winning adventures of Wallace & Gromit, "Chicken Run" and "Flushed Away."
This is surprising since Aardman Animations is also responsible for the more adult Wallace & Gromit adventures and "Chicken Run".
I'm also inclined to call it the best Aardman feature since Chicken Run all the way back in 2000, with all due respect to the charming but overlong Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and the overly polished Flushed Away ; it has a more ebullient sense of humor and playfulness, and while it's disappointing that it's CGI, not stop-motion, there's less than no value in complaining about that sort of thing.
The buzz: The first collaboration between Aardman (the brainy British studio behind “Wallace and Gromit” and “Chicken Run”) and Sony Pictures Animation (“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”) is a CG-animated holiday comedy with a clever concept and expertly selected voice cast (also including Imelda Staunton as Mrs. Santa).
Between his tree-shaped goatee and military uniform, Steve takes Christmas a little too seriously, running things like he would a military operation, which calls to mind the mismatched Zevo brothers of Barry Levinson's "Toys" (a holiday turkey perhaps only the folks at Aardman are generous enough to love).
The references come thick and fast – from E.T. to Short Circuit , with Big Hero 6 providing some particularly obvious inspiration and The Mitchells Vs The Machines exploring similar territory earlier this year.
Additionally, “Ron’s Gone Wrong” borrows from myriad other movies in telling the story of a lonely boy and his adorable but imperfect droid pal, from “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Big Hero 6” to “Her” and even that forgotten ‘80s comedy “Electric Dreams.”
Like Big Hero 6, Smith and Co. take the time to develop their relationship, with Ron attempting to learn about Barney while figuring out how to become his friend.
The first feature from London-based high-end digital animation studio Locksmith Animation, Ron’s Gone Wrong t ranscends the familiarity of the story (there’s a thematic an overlap with Big Hero 6 and How To Train Your Dragon , to name just two) with deft writing, appealing animation and a big heart crammed into a small malfunctioning robot.
The design and mission of the B-Bots makes them appear to be a mix between EVE from WALL-E and Baymax from Big Hero 6 .
But it’s no Big Hero 6 or Wall-E.
This is a very British riff on yuletide mythology - Santa (Jim Broadbent) is addressed in private as "Malcolm" and the family bickering has some of the earthy flavour of Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas books.
The film was directed and co-written by Sarah Smith, a producer on the British sketch comedy "The League of Gentlemen" - and a practiced hand at black comedy.
Smith and Baynham come from daft grown-up British TV comedies like "The League of Gentlemen," "The Armando Iannucci Shows," and "I'm Alan Partridge," while their producing partners are from Aardman Animations -- i.e., the Wallace and Gromit people.
This sparkling bauble comes courtesy the folks at Aardman Animations (Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run), and writer/director Sarah Smith (Brit sketch comedy The League of Gentlemen) who have sprinkled the film with sly adult humour that will flurry over the heads of the younger audience members (including fun sight gags like a well-placed canister of “chimney lube”), ensuring that each repeat viewing is sure to unearth new comedic gems to appreciate.
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970)
Directed by Arthur Rankin Jr.
influenced Arthur Christmas (2011)
Music
Aside from a snippet of Justin Beiber singing "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" and an unorthodox rendition of "Silent Night," the music is all Harry Gregson-Williams.
"Arthur" begins with a "Mission: Impossible"-inspired sequence (great use of the 3-D technology) in which platoons of elves deliver billions of presents under the techno-obsessed leadership of Santa's eldest son, Steve (voiced by Hugh Laurie), who is itching to take over the family business.
Starting off by addressing the nagging question, “Just how exactly does Santa deliver all those presents over the course of one night?” the film depicts the seemingly impossible mission by doing it up Mission: Impossible style, complete with millions of elves schooled in covert ops and a hi-tech sleigh equipped with stealth cloaking technology.
With the help of the S-1, a giant red craft that brings to mind Independence Day, thousands of elves parachute or glide down a rope from the ship, depositing presents in every child’s home.
Battalions of elves swarm cities Special Forces-style, rappelling down from an Independence Day-sized sleigh-ceship to carpet-bomb suburban living rooms in a mechanized cheer campaign that's coordinated down to the millisecond .
Like "Flushed Away" (2006) but unlike the stop-motion Oscar-winning shorts and "Wallace & Gromit" adventures that established Aardman's reputation for quality, "Arthur Christmas" is digitally animated, so it lacks the charm of Aardman's signature Plasticine figures and Claymation-like environments.
Their first release, 2000's " Chicken Run ," was quirky and heartwarming in the best sense of both terms, while 2005's " Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit " and 2006's " Flushed Away " left something to be desired, over calculated slapsticks with a quarter of the charm intended.
With the exception of Pixar, no animation studio working today delivers more consistently enjoyable films than the folks at Aardman, and while they cut their teeth with the plasticine adventures of Wallace & Gromit and the birds of Chicken Run, Aardman demonstrated they could embrace computer animation and not lose the distinctive feel and personality of their work with 2006’s underappreciated Flushed Away.
The Aardman studios, previously responsible for “Flushed Away” (2006), “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (2005), and “Chicken Run” (2000), again showcase their animators’ great attention to detail and wild visual imagination.
Aardman Animation, best known for the charming "Wallace and Gromit" cartoons, branched out from Plasticene stop-motion work to computer animation with Flushed Away (2006); this yuletide feature is the studio's second CGI project and the first in 3-D.
Big screen Christmas animation is even more rare, with the only two recent standouts being the Robert Zemeckis-directed A Christmas Carol and The Polar Express .
Never have such ugly people been more beautifully lit, demonstrating how far Sony's technique has evolved since its work on Warner Bros.' "The Polar Express."
Sarah Smith’s yuletide caper, in contrast, has a different feel altogether: part Megamind , part The Polar Express , part Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs .
The first feature from London-based high-end digital animation studio Locksmith Animation, Ron’s Gone Wrong t ranscends the familiarity of the story (there’s a thematic an overlap with Big Hero 6 and How To Train Your Dragon , to name just two) with deft writing, appealing animation and a big heart crammed into a small malfunctioning robot.
The militarized fairies recall the tech-savvy elves in animated movies such as “Arthur Christmas” and “Prep & Landing.”
The plot, though, is recycled from the Vince Vaughn comedy Fred Claus (Santa's duties are assumed by a goofy relative, in this case son Arthur) and the old Rankin-Bass special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Arthur goes on a rogue expedition with a couple other misfits).
“Storks” attempts to reimagine the child-sending stork fable with inspiration from “Monsters Inc.,” “Arthur Christmas,” “The Santa Clause,” “Elf” and early “Looney Tunes” shorts, specifically “ Baby Bottleneck .”
Sin grandes innovaciones, pero con un carácter fuertemente sentimental y empático, Kris Pearn realiza el título junto a la colaboración de Cory Evans y Rob Lodermeier, y tras haber trabajado en otras producciones como Arthur Christmas o Colegas en el bosque.
There’s a genuine re-watchable factor to the flick, and it’s certainly one of the better modern Christmas films alongside The Christmas Chronicles and Arthur Christmas .
Teamed up with co-writer Peter Baynham (scribe of the outrageously controversial Sacha Baron Cohen films, Borat and Brüno), Smith has created a magical story on film that paints a picture of a more modern Santa but with all the heart of the original fable.
The story is a sentimental mash-up of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “Short Circuit,” “E.T.” and “Wall-E” centered around a middle school lad with no friends surrounded by kids with robot friends, the latest innovation from an Apple knockoff called Bubble.
“The Incredibles” meets “Monsters, Inc.” in the 3-D computer-animated comic adventure “Arthur Christmas,” and it isn’t even a Pixar movie.
Directors Barry Cook (Arthur Christmas) and Neil Nightingale (producer of wildlife films including Meerkats: The Movie) and writer John Collee (Happy Feet, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) have done far superior work so their poor delivery here is puzzling.
Co-screenwriter John Collee wrote the charming Happy Feet and co-director Barry Cook was one of the directors on the winsome Arthur Christmas.
It’s almost as if the animated adventure’s filmmakers (Arthur Christmas co-director Barry Cook and documentarian Neil Nightingale) didn’t trust what they had here.