For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Best movie ever!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I have just seen approximately 1 minute of the US version of Hooves of Fire. I had to turn it off in disgust. Why are US accents necessary? Are the people of that country so simple that they cannot deal with accents? Are they so xenophobic that they can't deal with foreigner's outside of the context of a story's evil characters? What was a charming, original and very British comedy has been raped and pillaged like so many before. If your propaganda machine permits, please see the original version. The original Hooves of Fire is a very different Christmas story. It is a refreshing change. The quirky humour is enhanced by the array of Irish, English, Welsh and other accents. The cast of well-known voices from the UK and Ireland (Father Ted, Ab Fab, The Royle Family, etc) proves there is life outside of Hollywood. The mixture of a so-called children's story with more mature content yields a rich result. This show is fun for children and fun for adults: it can reach a more diverse audience (sort of like Philip Pullman's Dark Matters Trilogy, only in a much simpler way). Boycott this travesty.

I'm a huge fan of Robbie the Reindeer- and this is definitly the preferred version. CBS's American-ised re-dub of the voices is bland where the original sparkles with dry wit and humor. Robbie the Reindeer is the best Christmas special since the original Grinch, and everyone should get to see it at least once in their life.

Robbie is the son of Rudolph and is determined to follow in his Dad's hooves by getting a place on Santa's sledge team. However he is badly out of shape and is due to compete against Blitzen. He also is distracted by the seducing Vixen and ignorant of the doting Donner. Robbie must give his all in his race.I've seen this twice but the first time I saw it I assumed that I'd hate it as it appeared to be the BBC trying to catch a lift on the coattails of animation such as Chicken Run etc. I was right in that the humour and the animation is the same, but happily this wasn't a cheap rip off, in fact it almost matches the Nick park stuff in terms of how good it is.The plot is good but the characters and the side jokes make it worth watching at least once a year! Robbie himself is OK and O'Hanlon is a reasonable casting for the lead. Horrocks is a little dry but Coogan and Quentin are perfectly cast and really go to work with their characters. People like Enfield, Whitehouse, Ifans and Tomlinson just go to back up the calibre of the cast and add to the depth.Williams is perfect as the narrator as he sets the cheeky tone really well. However far and away my favourite characters are the sports commentators for Robbie's race. UK viewers will know that Des Yeti and Alan Snowman are total spoofs on the BBC's old Match of the Day team. Everytime they were onscreen I was in hoots of laughter – McGowan always does them well in his own shows but here his voices combined with the images just make it even better.Overall there is plenty for kids to love and they will be happy for the whole film, but adults will be laughing just as hard and will get a lot more of the jokes. Not quite as good as Nick Park's recent efforts but still well worth a look as it'll beat the pants off whatever else is on TV for kids this Christmas.

This was the funniest programme on the television at Christmas in Britain. It follows the adventures of a young reindeer called Robbie (the son of Rudolph)who has been sent by his father to Lapland to train and navigate Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. However, there are a couple of problems in Robbie's way. He is lazy and will do anything to get out of work , a female reindeer called Vixen has caught his eye and made him go all gooey and the leader of the sleigh team, Blitzen, is constantly conspiring to keep Robbie off the sleigh team because he hates Rudolph (Robbie's father) and wants to humiliate him. However, Robbie's friend, Donner, learns of this plan and informs Robbie and tells him to train like mad for the Reindeer Games. You can be rest assured that all turns out well in the end. British viewers will enjoy the depiction of the British sport commentators, Des Lynam and Alan Hansen as a yeti and a snowman respectively, and look out for a joke about the singer, Seal. All in all, it was one of the funniest short animations I have ever seen. I was in stitches on Christmas Day and it is well worth watching, whether you're an adult or a child, or just a big kid!!!