Simply put, I love the story. It's got greed, love, death, tragedy and redemption all rolled into one neat little package. As a sideline, I've read that A Christmas Carol and the poem A Visit From Saint Nicolas (aka The Night Before Christmas) are responsible for changing Christmas from a holiday that was only somewhat observed to the kind of Christmas celebrations I remember as a child. (There's no way I would lay the over-commercialized festival of buying that we have today at the feet of the authors of these two stories.)
I enjoy watching various movie versions of A Christmas Carol and own several. Of them all, the 1980s TV version staring George C. Scott as Scrooge is my absolute favorite. The 1951
With all of that in mind, here's my review of Disney's A Christmas Carol.
To use one of the Boy's favorite words, meh.
Well, I'll be back next week with- what's that? You want details? Oh, all right.
This version was creating using motion-capture for the people and computer animation for everything else. Motion-capturing is also the method used to create Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. The actor wears a special suit with lots of sensors. The actor's movements are picked up by the computer then a computer designed body is added. This supposedly results in more realistic movement for the computer animated characters while allowing the director to have complete control over the look of pretty much everything in the movie.
Despite my underwhelming response to the movie, it did have some high points. The computer animated depiction of Dickens' London was truly wonderful to behold. Without the physical restrictions of a live action movie, the animators went all out on the city and it showed. Jim Carrey did a reasonable job as Scrooge and Colin Firth did a good job as Fred, Scrooge's nephew, despite having less screen time than normal for A Christmas Carol. And that leads me directly into things I didn't care for so much.
The really important parts of the story, Scrooge's time with the spirits, his reclamation and subsequent embracing of the Christmas spirit felt very rushed to me. There were two significant exceptions to this, but I'll come to them in a bit. The movie swirls from the boarding school to Fezziwig's to Belle releasing Scrooge from their engagement and back to Scrooge's bedroom in just a matter of minutes. The time with Christmas Present rushes by quickly except where the animators chose to show off with special effects that seem to drag on and on but add nothing to the story. The animators truly get carried away with the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. It was here that the movie truly went awry.
When you're making a movie based on a story done many, many times before, I can see how a director or scriptwriter might look for some way to make their version stand out from those that came before it. They departed from the story from the very beginning by starting with a scene of Scrooge at the undertakers, paying for Marley's burial. The scene shows Scrooge struggling to pay the two coins to the undertaker before snatching up the pennies on Marley's eyes. We get it. Scrooge is a miser. Duh. For well over one hundred years, people have managed to figure out that same fact without a scene to throw it in their faces. They figured it out well enough that "scrooge" has come to mean "a miserly person." In a movie that I felt was rushing through the story, five minutes were wasted on this new scene. If only this was the worst of it...
I can only assume the script adviser for this movie was someone who knows nothing about movies but a lot about what he thinks people want to see. I imagine a gathering of some of Hollywood's finest minds as they try to figure out just which Hollywood movie staple would turn A Christmas Carol from a traditional holiday movie in a Hollywood blockbuster! I imagine them pacing around a conference room table until suddenly one of them shouts, "I've got it! Let's add...a chase scene!"
I wish I could say I'm joking about that. In a scene that seems to go on forever, two demonic horses pulling a pitch black hearse chase Scrooge through the streets of London. Lots of stupid stuff happens, including having Scrooge shrink down to rat-size. Eventually, the chase ends and the movie rushes toward its end. There's another scene, just before Scrooge wakes up in his room, during which he falls, seemingly forever, into a grave and toward an open casket.
I was also irritated that the closing narration was handled by Bob Cratchit rather than Scrooge's nephew, Fred. But I'm a purist and this may not bother you.
My recommendation, should you care for it, is to avoid this version of A Christmas Carol all together. It's too shallow for older children and adults and too scary for young children who might appreciate the fast pace. Buy the George C. Scott version on DVD, instead. It'll cost less and you'll enjoy it far more.
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