Arthur and the spaceship: A delightful new Santa story

 We all have this vision of Santa Claus flying around on a sleigh pulled by reindeer, a big bag of packages tucked behind him.

In reality, it doesn't work that way.

Santa actually travels in the S-1, a red spaceship bigger than the Star Trek Enterprise with a central command station on the North Pole and black-clad elves who zip down ropes, Mission: Impossible-style.

That's the version we get in Arthur Christmas, a new animation from first-time director Sarah Smith and Aardman Animations, the British company that brought us Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Right off the bat, Arthur has plenty going for it. First, it's not a re-animated version of an old book or cartoon that was already a movie. It's original. Second, there's no sign of Tim Allen.

In this story, there are three generations of the Claus clan, who bicker like any other family, even giving up on playing "Christmas" the board game when they can't agree on who will get which piece. There's the roly-poly Santa (voice of Jim Broadbent), a benign figurehead on the verge of retirement; there's the already retired Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), a cranky old coot who sits around in his undershirt yelling at the TV; and then there are Santa's two sons, one of whom is heir to the red suit.

Most likely it's Steve (Hugh Laurie), who looks like a GI Joe action figure, and keeps the operation running with military precision. His younger brother, Arthur (James McAvoy), is the scrawny, bumbling, but bighearted son who spends his days answering letters from kids.

The massive Christmas Eve operation, a visual dazzler worthy of Cecil B. DeMille, looks like a wrap until a lone elf on cleanup duty discovers a gift never delivered, a bicycle traced to a girl in a remote English village. Steve and Santa have both declared "Mission Accomplished" to the troops, with a banner that's evocative of you-know-what, and now it's virtually impossible to get the bike under her tree before sunrise.

That's when Arthur, Grandsanta, and high-spirited elf Bryony (Ashley Jensen) pull the ol' reindeer and sleigh out of storage and launch into action on an adventure that's sure to go awry but end sweetly and heroically.

Arthur Christmas is a delightful new entry on the list of holiday-season films, a vision of Christmas that we haven't seen before. The North Pole is as visually eye-popping as in The Polar Express, with more-vibrant color; the action won't startle the little ones (Whoville, anyone?); and the humor never sinks to the sophomoric.

This might be the first year that kids run downstairs to the tree and wonder whether their packages came by reindeer or space cruiser.

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