the audience applauded

Simply A Masterpiece

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Niko is a young reindeer told by his mother that his father is one of Santa's elite flying reindeers of the "Flying Forces". He has never met him because they are fully dedicated to flying for Santa. Flying squirrel Julius tries to guide the young reindeer and his friend Saga. Niko is eager to fly. They are hounded by the wolf pack and Niko overhears their plans to take on Santa and the Flying Forces. With the help of Wilma the weasel, Niko goes in search for his father in the Flying Forces.The animation looks fine. It's a little blocky but the animals look cute enough. The Flying Forces are rather annoying and I wish they have a better name. That song just isn't funny. I also wish Niko knew his father's name. I don't know what kind of nameless reindeer sex his mother had. It doesn't cost the movie anything for him to admire a specific father from afar. This is an OK family film.

Seriously one of the worst Christmas movies I have ever seen. One of "Santa's Flying Forces" has a one night stand with a doe which results in Niko. Apparently Niko's mom doesn't bother to ask his name though (probably a common mistake among doe groupies trying to get laid by Santa's Flying Forces).Movie includes: - A pretty scary pack of wolves with plans to eat Santa, Santa's reindeer, and children of the world. - A bar scene (yep, a reindeer bar scene) where none of Santa's reindeer remember Niko's mother ("Sorry kid, this is the world famous flying forces you're dealing with. We're gonna need more details.") - A a pink poodle subplot that might have belonged in another movie.We watched with our 9 and 11 year-old sons and the only fun we had was making fun of how bad the movie was. They hated it, but I suspect for totally different reasons than my husband and myself, lol.I have no problem with a Christmas movie that's a little bit raunchy (love Christmas Vacation and Bad Santa), but targeting a movie towards kids about one night stands that result in kids, Santa's reindeer in bars, and a scary wolf pack out to eat Santa is just sort of creepy.

There is a very important moral and the two main characters learn a lesson fro each other: Niko learns that there's no need to look for your real dad if you are surrender people who love you. Julius learns not to be too cautionary toward Niko. And it's the Christmas spirit (and a hilarious weasel called Wilma) which will teach them to appreciate each other. The animation is not the best, I mean, it's very good for five minutes, then it gets bad, then good for other five minutes and then bad again, because the animation has been created by more than 3 different studios set all over the Europe, and the directors weren't able to keep animation homogeneous all movie long. You can easily find out each animator's style and this is horrible because all the characters take turn to be badly animated, and this is sad. But graphics, score and story are gorgeous. I would have rated 9 if animation was better. Dave

Nothing at all to do with Christmas or the Christmas spirit. A bastard reindeer child searched for his "father" who flew into town one evening, impregnated his mother, and left the next day. Seriously? This has to be some sort of joke. There is no moral, no feel good ending, nothing at all to do with the spirit of Christmas. As I watched this on CBS my wife and I kept looking at each other in disbelief at the things that were said and the actions of some of the characters. This has to have been written as a joke and then produced to prove what suckers Americans are for good animation and and "b list" voice overs. Don"t waste your time or money if you are looking for a good children's Christmas story.