A Christmas Carol (Disney)
Rated PG for scary sequences and images.
Starring (voices) Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Cary Elwes, Robin Wright Penn, Bob Hoskins.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Written by Robert Zemeckis based on the novel by Charles Dickens.
GRADE: B+
REVIEWCharles Dickens' beloved tale of the redemption of the fictitious Ebeneezer Scrooge has been told countless times (well, actually, 20 times on film) and will continue to be good cinematic source material over the years. The 21st re-telling of the story comes from Disney, with the release of the computer-animated
A Christmas Carol, starring the voice, mannerisms and persona of Jim Carrey.
It would be a waste of time to go into too much plot detail here. Scrooge is a grumpy miser who is visited by his old dead business partner Jacob Marley on Christmas Eve, warning him that he will be visited by three ghosts including the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.
The ghosts show Scrooge the joys of his past and the lost opportunities for charity and happiness of his present, with dire warnings of the future.
When Scrooge awakens on Christmas Day, he is a new man full of charity, especially toward his overworked and underpaid subordinate Bob Cratchit (voiced and modeled by Gary Oldman - more on the "modeling" aspect of computer animation later) whose son Tiny Tim is in poor health. Scrooge also reunites with his estranged nephew (voiced and modeled by Colin Firth).
Okay, enough story. If you don't know the story of Scrooge by now, you have been living under a rock for 169 years.
As a film, Disney's Carol is no better or worse than other movie versions of Dickens' story. If you don't like this version then you most likely have a general problem with Dickens, not Disney.
The spectacular visual effects in the movie are interesting, especially in 3-D, which is how the film will be shown over much of the country, including IMAX theaters. The "modeling" method used in Robert Zemeckis' film has been done before, like in 2004's
Polar Express or 2007's
Beowulf. It's when they use the facial features, expressions and sometimes actions using motion-capture technology. The end result is a cartoon that looks exactly like the real actor, with a few enhancements. Still, there's something about these life-like computer animated films that bothers me. The skin textures, facial expressions, and mannerisms of the characters seems so real, except in the eyes, which lack something. It's like seeing a facade of a person instead of the person. There's something missing; Maybe it's the real human spirit.
I find it odd that Jim Carrey would star in an animated feature, since he basically IS an animated feature. I wonder if it would have been sufficient to make another Dickens adaptation starring Carrey in a live-action movie. Either way, Carrey doesn't ruin the classic or make it into a silly Carrey-esque comedy, even as a cartoon.
I would warn parents who think the Disney label makes
A Christmas Carol into a kid-friendly cartoon. The Dickens story is in fact, a "ghost" story full of a whole lot of haunting. Seeing it in 3-D doesn't tone down the scariness, either. There are a lot of creepy dead people in the movie. Disney's
A Christmas Carol is NOT for little kids, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone under 8.
