Christmas approaches, and the massive enterprise which is headed by Father Christmas himself, involving thousands of elves working on producing toys for the planet’s six hundred million boys and girls in the Christmas base. A giant hovering aircraft platform goes into operation, efficiently getting everything ready for the big night. At the corporation’s headquarters in the North Pole, Santa’s son, Steve, coordinates all aspects of the operation, but Steve, a super-efficent businessman, is keen to take over the top spot himself, determined to implement his own business and efficiency ideas. Steve has a brother, Arthur, who is well liked but largely dismissed by the rest of the family and the staff as an amiable, accident-prone idiot. On the big night of Christmas Eve, everything seems to go according to plan, and millions of toys are delivered, but Arthur is horrified to find that one present, a tricycle made for a little girl, Eve, has been overlooked and remains at the depot. Arthur tells Santa and Steve about the error, but both are willing to accept it as the sort of thing that can happen with an operation on such a massive scale. Grandsanta, the former Father Christmas but now a crusty, bad-tempered 136-year-old, hears of what has happened and takes Arthur aside, showing him his old sleigh. Together they decide to work together to deliver the missing present before Christmas morning, determined no child should be disappointed, and load the tricycle on to the sleigh and fly into the night, only to find they have been joined on the trip by Bryony, a renegade and independent-minded elf. The trip is very nearly a disaster at every turn, with several diversions and wrong turnings, and because Santa’s sleigh has already flown on the approved flight path around the world, Arthur and Grandsanta’s voyage registers as an unidentified UFO, causing them to be chased by jets and try to evade missiles, but even when it seems that their mission is doomed, Arthur is still determined that no child should be forgotten at Christmas, and that the present will delivered, no matter what he has to do. Aardman’s only other venture into CGI feature animation, instead of entertainingly manipulating plasticine and clay about, wasn’t particularly happy for producers or audiences alike, 2006‘s Flushed Away, which the company admitted was made under duress through their ill-fated deal with DreamWorks, but now that the Bristol-based animators are now signed up with Sony Pictures they apparently have more artistic freedom to make what they want, thus the idea to revisit CGI for Arthur Christmas (originally called Operation Rudolph), even though the bulk of the actual animation itself was produced by Sony Pictures Animation. The rather neat idea, from writers Peter Baynham and Sarah Smith, Smith also directing, is that instead of Santa’s operation being some nifty little cottage industry with helpful, industrious elves, but is a vast, huge enterprise, hugely hi-tech, the elves being highly trained science and computing geeks, as it would have to be in order to get presents to over six hundred million children. Santa himself, voiced by the entertaining tones of Jim Broadbent (Iris / Moulin Rouge), is only the current incumbent in the position, having two sons one of whom will inherit the mantle and responsibility, the choice being between the hyper-driven efficiency expert Steve (Hugh Laurie - TV’s House), and Arthur (James McEvoy - Wanted / X-Men: First Class), an amiable idiot and misfit, largely ignored by everybody, which of course makes him the archetypal underdog who is going to come through by the end. With such an operation there’s always the possibility for error, and when it is found that a child, Eve, has been missed out, its’ regarded by those in charge as acceptable considering the scale of the enterprise, which is a coldly chilling idea which is going to upset a lot of kids, but Arthur refuses to accept this, and with the aid of his grandpa, the entertainingly grouchy and deliberately awkward and difficult Grandsanta (voiced by Bill Nighy, does the man never sleep?) launches his own unauthorised renegade mission in order the missing present halfway around the world before dawn on Christmas morning, It’s a better plot than Flushed Away, which always seemed to be based on a dodgy idea, and matches the layer upon layer of detail in Aardman’s best works, and there is always something clever or amusing happening in the background, and this is going to be a pic which will demand exceptional use of the freeze-frame button to get all the sight gags and clever touches, and also moves at a tremendous rate. The film is frantically busy when set both on the Captain Scarlet-style cloudbase and also on Arthur and Grandsanta’s manic renegade mission to deliver Eve’s present, and even though the animation is beautifully detailed there is often little time to appreciate some of the settings and smart character design, and there is a subtle difference to the standard Aardman facial template, with smaller eyes and mouths but large noses and ears, but still pleasing to the eye. Although some will lament this isn’t made from the material that made the Bristolian animators famous in the first place (and just what is plasticine made off anyway?), Arthur Christmas is enormously appealing and hugely visual, making up for some of the slightly strange voice casting, since although James McEvoy is a versatile actor, he isn’t particularly well cast vocally as the oddball Arthur, and the result is a warm and pleasing family film which really demands repeat viewing.