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In this animated adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is a penny-pinching Christmas-hating miser 7 years after the death of his business partner Jacob Marley (Gary Oldman). But this Christmas Eve he is visited by three spirits that show Scrooge his past present and future in an attempt to change the old man's heart.
We're in a brave new frontier of animated storytelling where, led by Pixar, traditional cartoons are now really just animated films with the wit, imagination, intelligence and emotional resonance of their live-action counter-parts. If not moreso. But Robert Zemeckis seems to be out of the loop on that, instead on another frontier pushing forth that the American new wave of animation will come not through the warmth and strength of the storytelling, but from more advanced animated technology. Motion-capture technology that turns actors into CGI robots. Delivering eye-popping details of chin stubble and side-walk cracks at the expense of creating an emotional attachment with the characters.
The spiritual and technological sequel to Zemeckis' The Polar Express, A Christmas Carol delivers an entertaining, fairly straightfoward adaptation of the Dickens classic, but it's a cold effort that exhibits the worst in how motion capture and 3D technology can creep in and undermine your story. Zemeckis' vision of Carol sticks to the material faithfully. You'll hear all of the classic lines from the story and every adaptation since, from the Alistair Sim classic to the loved Mickey's Christmas Carol. And for little one's, this version would make a fine introduction to the writing of Dickens, when his words do appear. Zemeckis' visual interpretation is also faithful in several instances. I did love that the Ghost of Christmas future was depicted just as a silent shadow instead of the hooded, talking figure some versions have morphed him into.
In fact, the movie starts off wonderfully, taking us on an epic pass through the streets and rooftops of Christmas-time London. It's when it narrows down to Scrooge and the spirit business at hand where if starts to feel both narritively claustrophobic and visually grandstanding. Zemeckis uses the motif that the spirits take Scrooge on a journey through time and space to whisk the audience out windows, over vast landscapes, under tunnels and through drain pipes and down roofs. It's thrilling to watch, but it also feels like Zemeckis starts to only hit the high points of the story so he can move onto another visual rollercoaster moment instead of using that to expand Scrooge's universe and the scope of the story as the movie did so well in the opening. I would have loved to have gotten more of how Scrooge's greedy ways effected the entire town, that his behavior extended beyond grieving over the death of a friend, and this would have been the perfect adaptation to do that.
A Christmas Carol makes for a perfect example of how a movie catering to a 3D format can absolutly choke the life out of it's story. Zemeckis' Scrooge is continually turned into a slapstick baffoon, suffering all sorts of falls and thrown from heights that an old man's body would never stand up to. Diverting from the story several times to take Scrooge on a Donald Duck-styled bit of slapstick, Scrooge is rocketed into the sky or slides down a roof and gets hit in the face with icicles. This is supposed to be a rigid, angry, unsympathetic formitable figure and Zemeckis has turned the character into a rag doll to throw cool things at the audience in 3D. It's like Zemeckis is at war with part of himself that wants to make a stern serious adaptation and part of him that wants to turn A Christmas Carol into an action movie. It doesn't fit to say the least.
But for all of Zemeckis' loony demands, Jim Carrey certainly seems up for the task for any of it. His voice performance here as Scrooge (barely recognizable as himself) is some of Carrey's best work in years. Throw onto that he is also voicing the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present and it's an undeniably impressive piece of work for the actor. A promising 2nd career for an actor whose physical comedy seems to have out lived it's prime. That may sound like a backhanded compliment but it's true. Carrey has been floundering around for year's now trying to find a groove between drama and comedy, but he is terrific in A Christmas Carol.
While it feels truncated, panders to 3D technology and doesn't quite elicit the warm, crackling fire feelings of Christmas joy that other versions of this story have, Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol is still an entertaining watch and very often a fun and visually creative ride. It's not a great movie, but it's still a really good Christmas movie.
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