FILM REVIEW: Arthur Christmas.

In a desperate attempt to get into the festive spirit in time for Christmas I dragged myself off to the cinema to watch Arthur Christmas. To be honest, I thought this was going to be a pretty bad movie - the tacky 'Arthur Christmas' themed lights in Oxford Street really put me off. However, I was surprised to find that Arthur Christmas was given a rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and some really praising reviews.

Arthur Christmas is a brilliant and unique take on the build up to Christmas and exactly how Santa delivers all those gifts. The story starts on Christmas Eve with Steve Santa - Santa's first son, and heir to the title of 'Santa', carrying out a mission-impossible styled operation to get billions of presents delivered on time. Of course, this is done with the help of the 'S1' - a massive space ship, and thousands of trained elves. The night is a great success and they manage to deliver every single present to every good child around the globe without being spotted. However, soon after their celebrations, an elf, Bryony, discovers an undelivered present! She immediately alerts Steve and his personal assistant of this; however, Steve, who takes a rather militant attitude towards Christmas giving, argues that one undelivered present is a minimal error and there is absolutely no way they can deliver the present with only two hours until sunrise. Arthur Christmas, Santa's younger son, overhears this and is distraught to hear that one little girl won't be getting a present from Santa this year. Arthur's grandfather proposes that Arthur and himself fly The Evie - the old Christmas sleigh - all the way to England to make sure the last present gets delivered and after a bit of nudging, nervous Arthur agrees to it. So, Grand-Santa and Athur embark on an adventure to England but things aren't plain sailing - they even have a run in with some African lions!

Every single voice in this movie is recognisable as they have used a star-studded voice-over cast including: James McAvoy as Arthur, Hugh Laurie as Steve, Jim Broadbent as Santa, Bill Nighy as Grand-Santa, Imelda Staunton as Mrs Santa, Ashley Jensen (Ugly Betty's Christina) and even glimpses of Robbie Coltrane and Eva Longoria! Each and every voice perfectly matches the personality and appearance of each character. This absolutely fantastic cast along with the heart-warming plot and brilliant animation led to Arthur Christmas being nominated for a long list of awards including Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globe Awards.

This is an absolutely brilliant, feel-good, Christmas movie that all families need to see! This film had me smiling fondly from beginning to end and even laughing out loud at some points because for once- the humour is actually funny. You can't help but love Arthur Christmas for his true Christmas spirit and his warm heart and the ending should leave everyone with a satisfied grin on their faces. So Christmas this year may be over, but if you want to hang on to the festivities for a couple more days then I highly recommend watching Arthur Christmas for all the family! If you're already packing away your Christmas things for this year, then buy this on DVD for next year - it's definitely worth it!

P.S. Wishing all my followers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!