• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Arthur Christmas

With Christmas movies hitting the theaters and holiday marketing campaigns assailing us at every turn, it’s that time of year when many parents begin their annual battle with corporations for the soul of Christmas. Will our children see it as a holiday full of charity, good will, and hopes for peace on earth, or as a rare opportunity for sanctioned and even sanctified greed, where parents must fulfill a corporate vision of what Christmas should be and the endless number of gifts and decorations that must be bought to ensure the holiday’s success.

For me, this struggle for the soul of Christmas is best exemplified by ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, a cartoon released in 1965 that finds Charlie Brown feeling depressed and alienated by the commercialization and materialism of Christmas, to the point that he no longer knows what the holiday means. It’s a funny, thoughtful, beautiful piece that I look forward to every year, especially as the Christmas industrial complex continues to grow in size and ferocity.

Sadly, the Christmas fare kids are more likely to see these days is stuff like the new 3D animated film ‘Arthur Christmas’, which makes the repellant claim that if even ONE child doesn’t get the present they asked for by Christmas morning, that Christmas will somehow be ruined for EVERYONE.

Which is unfortunate because ‘Arthur Christmas’ starts with a clever premise: that the task of delivering hundreds of millions of presents on Christmas Eve is accomplished by a pseudo-military black ops-style operation launched from a sleigh-shaped airship, where elves use high-tech gadgets and spy techniques to infiltrate houses and disarm alarm systems in order to quickly deliver presents without waking up sleeping occupants or pets.

Overseeing this mission impossible is Steve, voiced by Hugh Laurie, a capable military-officer-type who is next in line to be Santa, a largely ceremonial role held by Steve’s aging father, voiced by Jim Broadbent, a figurehead with the delusion that he’s actually running things. But the story’s supposed hero is Steve’s younger brother, Arthur, voiced by James McAvoy, a bumbling, good-hearted, Christmas-loving dope whose incompetence has found him relegated to a cramped office in the letter-answering department.

When it’s discovered that an error has been made and a British girl’s bicycle won’t be delivered on time, Arthur and his somewhat delusional grandfather, voiced by Bill Nighy, decide to dust off the old sleigh and reindeer and travel thousands of miles and overcome multiple mishaps to deliver the gift before the girl wakes up, since it would be a catastrophe if just one of the hundreds of millions of kids in the world didn’t get exactly what they wanted exactly by Christmas morning.

Now just think about how frightening that message is. Do parents want their kids to think that if the object of their greediest desire isn’t waiting for them under the tree by Christmas morning, that Santa doesn’t care about them and that Christmas is ruined? It would be a horrible sentiment in any year, but it’s even more deplorable at a time when so many parents are struggling to pay the bills and keep a roof over their children’s heads. None of the characters are particularly likable, even Arthur (who I found to be annoying), and the 3D is unimpressive and pointless. The fact that ‘Arthur Christmas’ was made by Aardman Animations, the people who made the wonderfully clever and hilarious ‘Wallace & Gromit’ Claymation series, makes this affront particularly painful.

So if you’re thinking of taking your kids to see ‘Arthur Christmas’, know that you won’t only be paying the 3D-inflated price of admission. You’ll also be buying a ticket for your own guilt trip in the form of an emotional cudgel for your kids to use against you if you don’t buy them what they demand. After all, you don’t want to ruin Christmas for EVERYONE, do you?

‘Arthur Christmas’ is rated PG and opens today.