Sainsbury's - BIG Christmas / Big Friendly Giant (2024) 1:45 (UK)

You thought your heart was as unmovable as a brick during the festive ad blitz. Tear-jerking tales and saccharine song covers? Pfft, you're bulletproof, right? Wrong. A supermarket ad comes along and hits you with a nostalgia grenade so precisely aimed, you're half-convinced they've been rifling through your attic for ammo.

Cue the entrance of the Big Friendly Giant, or as Roald Dahl might say, the BFG, now animated and on a quest to escape his usual diet of snozzcumbers (because even giants deserve a break from the bland at Christmas). He heads to Sainsbury's, not for humans (he's still friendly!), but for something a bit more festive to eat. He finds Sophie there, eager to help him.

This isn't some flashy CGI fest where everything looks too perfect to be real. They've gone old-school with puppets and miniatures, giving it that charmingly rough-around-the-edges vibe, like stop-motion on steroids. I am a sucker for great animation, always have been.

It's a story that captures the magic of Dahl better than Spielberg's attempt. Suddenly, my heart isn't just warmed; it's throwing its own little Christmas party, complete with tiny, not-at-all-gross snozzcucumber canapés.