Elliot the Littlest Reindeer

The animation is not the best - let's get this straight from the beginning. The dialog could have been better on certain occasions too. Still the movie is fine for little ones and those who are willing to cut this some slack and accept it for what it is - not perfect, but decent enough. Some things may feel muddled and a bit deluded and tough to comprehend in the story. But overall it is a story about someone who wants to break a standard! You may not agree with this social message, you may like to think in boxes and certain structures that people or things are not supposed to break out of. For everyone else, give it a try. Worse things could be seen - believe that

There is this old Danish song that says Xmas ends in Easter. Another animal who wants to be a reindeer cliche cartoon. The background animation of North Dakota is fine, but not the same to say about the character animation. Good to stream for a Xmas party with the whole family, but no Xmas masterpiece.

Watched this while I was staying at my brother's with my 5 year old nephews, and it's definitely a movie kids will enjoy. For anyone over the age of 13, there's not much here, outside of some strangely tone-deaf attempts at humor. This is basically Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, but worse. In this universe, Santa isn't a secret and people from around the world train new reindeer to join his team when the old ones retire. Enter Elliot, a miniature horse with big aspirations to join Santa's team, who sneaks in to the reindeer competition in the hopes of proving himself and saving his farm from bankruptcy. You can probably fill in the blanks from there. Like a lot of bad Christmas movies, the problem here is cynicism. The elves are grouchy and tired of working so much, and the reindeer are all ego-driven jocks. Santa himself is barely in the movie and looks more like a weightlifter than a jolly old elf. It just doesn't evoke the holiday spirit and feels more like a sports movie, given the reindeer competition is framed like the Olympic games. Things get even weirder when it's revealed that the only reason the reindeer can fly is because they eat Mrs. Claus' magic cookies. The movie treats these sort of like marijuana edibles - a goat character eats too many of these "magic" cookies and begins tripping out, having hallucinations as she finds she can no longer control herself. Other parts of the movie treats these cookies like steroids, as it's discovered some of the reindeer are cheating by eating extra cookies to give them an advantage in the competition. What better way to spend the holidays than teaching the kids about substance abuse, eh? The ending is complete garbage; after ignoring the main plot thread for most of the movie, Elliot rushes home to save his farm only to find out the farm saved itself, off camera, and there was never anything to worry about to begin with, with no reason to go on the adventure. Merry Christmas, I guess?

If you have a blind and deaf child, this movie was made especially for them. This must have been screen tested at Guantanamo Bay to ensure maximum effect for parents.

Our entire family watched this the day after Christmas, along with my 4 year old grandson, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it and laughed throughout. The dialogue was original for both adults and children. We loved this movie!

I honestly tried to watch this with my kids. 1hr in and I still struggled to understand what was going on. The dialogue is sporadic and doesn't flow naturally with the story. They continually introduce new characters and existing characters constantly deviate from their "personality". Same old cartoon tropes-stereotyped animals with exaggerated accents. Overall it's just another generic B-level cartoon.

I had really high hopes for this film when I saw the advert graphic on netflix and read the summary. I thought this would be a nice Christmas film to put on to pass the time. I am a huge fan of animation everything from Disney to indie films. This film is just off and seems very half hearted. It's about 50% good animation with lovely texture and 50% terrible and completely lifeless. The main character lacks texture and it seems almost as if they couldn't quite give him a full character profile, sadly he is very dull to watch. Yet, the sidekick has beautiful flowing texture and seems fully rounded as a character. She is far more likeable and is fun to watch. The script was OK but had far too many adult life references in certain areas. Now I enjoy that in children's films because it makes for fun viewing for the adults but, without good animation it is impossible for the adults to stay interested enough to enjoy them, only the kids are still watching and it will be lost on them. I have no issues with the story but it is a a huge shame that everything else in the film only half complimented it. Such a shame as we had high hopes for viewing. I see it would be a great attempt but it really is just that, an attempt.