A Christmas Carol is one of Dickens' most famous stories and, in turn, one that is adapted to the film medium all the time. While Robert Zemeckis' most recent version might be the most emotionally involving or mature, it definitely is the most fun and visually stimulating one. I'm sure many people will criticize because, to them, it trivializes Dickens' original story, turning it into something that belongs on a Play Station 3. And to a certain extent, this is true - the film looks amazing, but videogames are also starting to look equally amazing. But I disagree. While this aspect might be somehow distracting, the movie is entertaining enough to make one forget the - sometimes - cheesiness of the - admittedly impressive - animation and just enjoy the story.
I won't re-tell the story of the ever selfish Scrooge (here played by a CGI Jim Carrey) and how he gets visited by three ghosts in order to change the way he lives and views life and the people around him. It's well known enough, and for those four who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm sure you'll be able to find enough information about Dickens' story on the web. (Or better yet, you could actually read the original tale.) What I want to do is to focus on the way Zemeckis interprets the story - because, although for the most part he stays very faithful to Dickens, he has added a couple of scenes and situations that, although they make the movie somehow more entertaining - especially for children - they feel out-of-place. Consider the scene in which a tiny Scrooge gets involved in an action-packed chase - it's all very pretty and visually stimulating, but it doesn't feel like it belongs to a movie of this sort. Don't take me wrong, though - although there are "showy" moments like this in which Zemeckis is clearly trying to make the most of the 3D version of the film, A Christmas Carol is dark and faithful enough to the original tale for adults to take it suitably seriously.
Voice work is excellent. Jim Carrey is just perfect as Scrooge, and his work voicing the three ghosts is really good too. Gary Oldman plays a variety of roles - although one of them actually features his own physical likeness - and Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn, Colin Firth, and Cary Elwes all do their jobs in their smaller - but not unimportant - roles. Visually, as said before, the movie is a marvel. Characters look very lifelike - surpassing everything Zemeckis accomplished with his previous two animated movies, The Polar Express and Beowful - the eyes are getting less and less creepy with each production - and the overall design is breathtaking. The opening scenes, in which the camera flies over Victorian London, is simply phenomenal, and although the "action" sequences are definitely out-of-place, they are quite entertaining on their own right.
What else can be said about the movie? It isn't the most emotional version of the story - if there's something that clearly makes this interpretation inferior to previous adaptations, is that Zemeckis favours visual razzle-dazzle over emotional impact. The film looks amazing, that's for sure, but Scrooge transformation didn't affect me that way I would've liked it to. Still, that doesn't mean the movie lacks any kind of emotional impact - it just isn't as powerful as it could have been. The thing is, being an animated Disney movie and all, this version of A Christmas Carol is clearly focused on entertaining kids, so - at least from a marketing standpoint - it made sense for Zemeckis to insert more "actiony" scenes so that children wouldn't get bored.
So is this the best version of A Christmas Carol there is? Definitely not. But it certainly is the most visually stunning, and one of the most entertaining. Indeed, for those who haven't become tired of watching the same story time and time again - in different versions, of course -, this represents a solid hour and a half of pretty-looking, solidly-acted, animated entertainment.
I won't re-tell the story of the ever selfish Scrooge (here played by a CGI Jim Carrey) and how he gets visited by three ghosts in order to change the way he lives and views life and the people around him. It's well known enough, and for those four who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm sure you'll be able to find enough information about Dickens' story on the web. (Or better yet, you could actually read the original tale.) What I want to do is to focus on the way Zemeckis interprets the story - because, although for the most part he stays very faithful to Dickens, he has added a couple of scenes and situations that, although they make the movie somehow more entertaining - especially for children - they feel out-of-place. Consider the scene in which a tiny Scrooge gets involved in an action-packed chase - it's all very pretty and visually stimulating, but it doesn't feel like it belongs to a movie of this sort. Don't take me wrong, though - although there are "showy" moments like this in which Zemeckis is clearly trying to make the most of the 3D version of the film, A Christmas Carol is dark and faithful enough to the original tale for adults to take it suitably seriously.
Voice work is excellent. Jim Carrey is just perfect as Scrooge, and his work voicing the three ghosts is really good too. Gary Oldman plays a variety of roles - although one of them actually features his own physical likeness - and Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn, Colin Firth, and Cary Elwes all do their jobs in their smaller - but not unimportant - roles. Visually, as said before, the movie is a marvel. Characters look very lifelike - surpassing everything Zemeckis accomplished with his previous two animated movies, The Polar Express and Beowful - the eyes are getting less and less creepy with each production - and the overall design is breathtaking. The opening scenes, in which the camera flies over Victorian London, is simply phenomenal, and although the "action" sequences are definitely out-of-place, they are quite entertaining on their own right.
What else can be said about the movie? It isn't the most emotional version of the story - if there's something that clearly makes this interpretation inferior to previous adaptations, is that Zemeckis favours visual razzle-dazzle over emotional impact. The film looks amazing, that's for sure, but Scrooge transformation didn't affect me that way I would've liked it to. Still, that doesn't mean the movie lacks any kind of emotional impact - it just isn't as powerful as it could have been. The thing is, being an animated Disney movie and all, this version of A Christmas Carol is clearly focused on entertaining kids, so - at least from a marketing standpoint - it made sense for Zemeckis to insert more "actiony" scenes so that children wouldn't get bored.
So is this the best version of A Christmas Carol there is? Definitely not. But it certainly is the most visually stunning, and one of the most entertaining. Indeed, for those who haven't become tired of watching the same story time and time again - in different versions, of course -, this represents a solid hour and a half of pretty-looking, solidly-acted, animated entertainment.