Hooves of Fire

No one ever says "hurrah" do they? You never see, "And Gene Shallit says, 'Hurrah!'" in a newspaper. Which is a shame, because it's so much fun to say. Go on try it. No one's looking. Okay, on three, ready? One...two...three. HURRAH! There, that wasn't bad, was it?

Anyway, onto the actual film, it's wonderful. The story concerns Robbie (voiced by Irish comedian extraordinare Ardal O'Hanlon), the son of another famous reindeer (whose name is never uttered) who wants to be on Santa's sleigh team. Trouble is, he's lazy. In the end he gets up off his butt, defeats the evil Blitzen ("Around the World in 80 Days" star Steve Coogan) and finds love. The writing, performances, animation and everything are superb. You will find yourself laughing out loud at these reindeer and the silly things they do. But make sure you see the UK edition, because on CBS here in the States they've rerecorded the dialogue with Ben Stiller, Britney Spears, Hugh Grant and Brad Garrett and removed charming Britishisms like, "You're chucked" rather than "I'm breaking up with you."

There is an important point here. Americans are obtuse about other cultures. We are so convinced that ours is the best nation out there despite never EVER having set foot off her shores. Anything foreign, we remake and redo and Americanize. This is the logic behind American versions of British comedies, Kevin Costner as Robin Hood and the decision that American primetime TV audiences wouldn't like an Irish reindeer so let's make him Derrick Zoolander instead.

See the British version, I beg you. And its sequel, "Legend of the Lost Tribe."