Holiday Movie Review: Arthur Christmas

            Christmas day is the one day out of the year where kids wake up extra early just so they can run to where their Christmas tree awaits them brightly lit, lovingly decorated with presents underneath it.  However, the big man in red comes with the age old question…how does he deliver presents to every boy and girl in the world in just one night?

            Arthur Christmas gives us an inside look at the prominent, yet very dysfunctional, family of the Clauses. Grand Santa and his old but faithful cone wearing reindeer, Mr. and Mrs. Santa and their sons Arthur and Steve…not to mention the thousands of elves that work and live at the north pole. You have Grand Santa who is very stuck in his ways as the Santa that got around the world in one night on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer and by going down the chimney, not by all the fancy gadgets and elf power Santa has now. Then there's Santa who's the big man in red but owes the success of Christmas to his son, Steve. Steve uses modern gadgets and thousand of elves in the control center and goes out with Santa to help coordinate the delivery of presents without blowing their cover. Lastly, we have Santa's other son, Arthur, who loves nothing more than the excitement of Christmas and writing letters back to the millions of children that send Santa letters every year. However, Christmas isn't exactly perfect, because Santa somehow misses giving one little girl her present. Steve and Santa both agree that there is no time for Santa to go back and leave it under the tree, but a determined Arthur begs to differ. With the help of a wrapping elf, Grand Santa and some reindeer; Arthur sets out late Christmas morning to deliver this forgotten present. However, will he make it in time without blowing Santa's cover?

            When I first heard of Arthur Christmas, I was a little taken aback because I thought, "here we go again, another silly movie about Santa…just another way to make money off of the Christmas spirit." But, after only catching clips of the trailer on TV, I decided to go and check out its official trailer online. I think what really caught my eye was the scene in the trailer where the elf scans a kid to see if he is naughty or nice and the kid scans 56 percent naughty, so the elf scans himself and makes the kid 82 percent nice. I ended up seeing Arthur Christmas in 3D, which was awesome! This is definitely a good movie that uses the 3D effects well and makes it look like some of the things actually pop out of the screen at you. Overall, Arthur Christmas is a great holiday movie that you can see with your family and friends. It is definitely a heart-warming film that makes you want to decorate your whole house with bows of holly and hope that you have been nice enough that Santa will come visit you! I would give Arthur Christmas the full "HO, HO, HO!" rating for its awesome use of 3D, cute but mind racing plot, humor and its overall Christmas spirit.