Arthur Christmas Review

Arthur Christmas: is it a festive sequel to Russell Brand’s comedy remake? Or has Arthur the Aardvark finally made it to the big screen? Or is it in fact a seasonal Aardman animation about a dysfunctional family on Christmas Eve who just so happen to be the Christmases – as in Father Christmas (though their surname is apparently interchangeable with Claus). It is the latter. The Christmas family, as you might expect, deliver presents to all the children in the world on Christmas Eve. This is done using highly advanced technology, not least of all a city-sized, sleigh-shaped spaceship. Unfortunately, despite all of the Christmas’s technical ingenuity, one child’s present fails to be delivered, so hapless youngest son Arthur takes it upon himself to get the gift to her himself.

The whole ‘how Santa does it’ theme has been visited regularly enough to almost be a genre in itself. Fred Claus, The Santa Clause films andThe Polar Express have all visited this idea and more recently Hop took a similar approach with the Easter bunny story (such as it is). As such, much of what should be inventive and amusing about the film falls a little flat. Arthur Christmas’s commando elves are akin to Hop’s commando rabbits and images of vast present production lines have been done before in The Polar Express to name two such instances. That said, the volume of fun ideas is such that for every miss, there is a hit – I laughed at the suggestion that the space-sleigh converts milk and cookies to biofuel, for example. Keep your eyes peeled for the hundreds of visual gags scattered throughout the film.

Whilst the film boasts an impressive array of British vocal talents – James McAvoy, Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent head up a list of names often associated with British ensemble casts and are complemented by the likes of Hugh Laurie, Ashley Jensen and others – McAvoy as the titular character is often incredibly annoying. He whines, whinges and squawks, frequently repeating his inane blabbering ad nauseam. Fortunately the other characters are far less tedious. Nighy’s grouchy granddad, Jensen’s resourceful elf and Imelda Staunton’s composed Mrs Santa are all fun to watch.

On the whole, Arthur Christmas is a pretty enjoyable and often fairly funny adventure that should tide over younger viewers until at least New Year. The film is also witty enough and put together with a level of care and skill that should also satisfy – if not enthral – older viewers too. I’m concerned girls might not enjoy it as much as boys though; the film is a bit of a sausage fest. Whilst the idea of succession is one of the slightly more complex and interesting ideas the film plays with, what might have been more interesting still – and more importantly, fun – would have been to pursue the idea of a female Santa taking over the family business. If it’s now good enough for the Royals…

X-Men First Class Review

Here’s an ugly confession: I really like X-Men 3. In fact, it’s quite probably my favourite X-Film. The first was fun but pretty ropey, the second was great but had long periods of nothing happening. And Wolverine was obviously a bag of balls. In X-Men 3, you get lots of exciting stuff happening, loads of major characters getting merked, that whole Golden Gate thing, a thrilling end to the Wolverine/Jean Grey relationship and Vinnie Jones (though admittedly I may be in a minority in the Vinnie-appreciation stakes).

So the big question is, can X-Men: First Class top the dizzy heights of The Last Stand? Well, it at least equals them. The kick-ass director of Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn, returns with frequent script-writing collaborator Jane Goldman to blast the X-Men saga back to the past in this sixties-set caper which reveals the origins of the relationship between Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and the early lives of a host of popular mutants, as they struggle to come to terms with their powers whilst trying to stop Kevin Bacon’s Sebastian Shaw starting a nuclear war.

The frenetic pace of the film ensures the viewer is never bored, though rather is occasionally overwhelmed with information, diegetic references, action sequences, plot detail and stylistic touches. There are more scene shift captions in a single twenty minute chunk of First Class than many films manage to muster in their entire duration. An awful lot seems to be happening all the time and sometimes you wish Vaughn would slow down and let the film breathe a little bit.

There are also numerous plot discrepancies (why doesn’t Magneto simply kill the film’s antagonist the first time he encounters him and save everyone a load of grief? Won’t a nuclear war kill all the mutants as well as the humans? Why does Shaw’s helmet prevent telepaths from reading his mind? Because “the Russians made it”? Oh I see!), but frankly, the breakneck pace prevents the reader from getting too concerned with them until well into the journey home form the cinema. Apart from those cavils though, X-Men: First Class really does have an awful lot going for it. Firstly, it’s very funny, particularly Charles Xavier’s character (“That’s a very groovy mutation!” he purrs to beautiful women on more than one occasion). McAvoy’s chemistry with Fassbender is great, though Fassbender does somewhat steal the show and further cements his reputation for being one of the most captivating actors of his generation. They are flanked by a remarkable cast that includes Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, the aforementioned Bacon, Nicholas Hoult, Jason Flemyng and a really quite lovely Rose Byrne.

The production design is cracking; perhaps leaning slightly more towards pastiche than homage of sixties style, but overall, looks great. One scene in particular evokes the most sinister Stella Artois advert you could ever imagine and the film owes much to the early Bond films in terms of its look. Henry Pryce Jackman’s stirring soundtrack may be something of a one trick pony, but goshdarnit if it isn’t a good trick. First Class also boasts by far the best cameo appearance in any superhero film you’re liable to see. The final sequence in Cuban waters as two superpowers prepare for war, is also really well done.

So in spite of my not inconsiderable reservations regarding pace and plot, X-Men: First Classsimply has too many good bits to be anything less than a great film. For a series that has always been somewhat preoccupied with its own history (the frequent flashbacks in X2, the oft referred to history between Xavier and Magneto, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), First Class manages not only to feel fresh and exciting but also betters much of what has gone before it. Still, no Vinnie Jones though.