After two teasers that did exactly that – tease – the time has finally come for the Arthur Christmas team to start peeling back the layers of comic secrecy and reveal a lot more about the plot of the film in the latest trailer, which you can watch below.
brightcove.createExperiences();Of course, much of the detail is already out there, but in case you’re not worried about trying to stay on the nice list, here are the basics: we’re introduced to the way that the current Santa Claus (Jim Broadbent) makes his festive deliveries. It’s a complicated, Mission: Impossible-style job involving a mile-long sleigh ship and millions of elves. All of the real work is done by his eldest son, Steve (Hugh Laurie) while younger sprog Arthur (James McAvoy) is more of a dreamer/nincompoop.
But when a young girl named Gwen is accidentally missed during one Christmas run, Arthur takes it upon himself to make sure her faith in Father Christmas isn’t shattered. He’ll need a little help from the cranky Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), who thinks it could still all be done in the traditional way and offers the use of his own, slightly less high-tech sleigh…
With a script co-written by Day Today/Borat veteran Peter Baynham and director Sarah Smith, this represents Aardman Animation’s latest big attempt to crack into 3D CG ‘toons. And it definitely seems loaded with plenty of Aardman spirit. Can it deliver at the box office? We’ll find out when it slides down our cinematic chimneys (stop giggling at the back, there!) on November 11.