Movie Review: Disney's A Christmas Carol

By FOX43tv.com's Film Reviewer, Stephanie Cooke

Watch the trailer!

From the Back to the Future trilogy to Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Cast Away among others, I have loved Robert Zemeckis and appreciated his vision for film.  And even though it took awhile for me to warm up to it -- to get past the freakiness of it's look -- The Polar Express has become one of my favorite holiday movies.  Now Zemeckis turns his vision and his use of performance-capture animation on the age-old classic Charles Dickens story of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge.  And like Polar Express, I am quite slow to warm up to it.

We all pretty much know the story of A Christmas Carol so there's no need to repeat it.  Zemeckis stays painstakingly true to the Dickens story and language throughout the film.  We see the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future visit the miserly Scrooge in an effort to help him right the wrongs he's made before it's too late.  Each ghost takes Scrooge on a high-flying adventure.  I saw the movie in IMAX 3-D and found these long scenes on the way to the story to be more like an amusement park ride than part of the film. 

There were some good things about this film for me: 

Good Point #1: Jim Carrey.  He played Scrooge as well as The Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come.  He doesn't over do it and strikes just the right chord as the mean-hearted Scrooge.  There are times you can forget that it's Jim Carrey.  And his ghosts are all scary. 

Good Point #2:  the performance-capture animation.  This technique is used mainly on Scrooge and Cratchit.  They are the only ones that seemed real, and at times I asked myself if they weren't.  It seemed as if you could reach right out and touch the hairs on Scrooge's nose.  I'll also add the use of 3-D in here.  Zemeckis has a way with it.  The scenes that really use it are never overt.  He uses just the right amount of 3-D for it to be fun and fascinating.

Good Point #3:  the story.  The story is magical.  The lonliness, the fear, the redemption.  I loved it from the first time I saw it as a child, and even more when I read it as a teeneager.  Zemeckis stayed true to the Dickens' tale, despite the challenges of the dialogue.

And then there were the things I didn't like. 

Negative #1:  the story.  I know it was  Good Point #3, but I also had a problem with it.  This is a Disney story, which, to me, means that I will go and be entertained and that I can take my kids to be entertained.  Not so much, I found out.  There were times in the film when Zemeckis stayed so true to the Dickens's story that my kids were just lost.  They didn't understand a prison treadmill or Union workhouses.  The story was also extremely dark.  True to the time in which it was written, people are hungry and afflicted with pox and skin lesions, sunken eyes and pale skin.  Scary.

Negative #2:  the animation.  Again, it was Good Point #2, but other than Scrooge and Cratchit the rest of the characters seemed forgotten in the performance-animation plan. They didn't come close to Scrooge and Cratchit or even Shrek.  Except for the ghosts.  The ghosts were very scary.

Negative #3:  Christmas is lost.  Not really.  The story maintains the Christmas feel but really only at the beginning and the end do you even feel like it's a Holiday movie.  It reminds me more of the Nightmare Before Christmas .  Sure you get the "Bah Humbug" and the "God bless us everyone" lines, but with all of the death and ghosts and graveyards, you feel like you're in a Halloween movie.

Honestly, it is rated PG and parents should keep that in mind when thinking about taking kids to see it.  There were many kids in my theater hiding their eyes and screaming out "Mommy it's scary!".  Disney seems to not know exactly who the audience is for this movie.  I thought it was me!  I LOVE Disney and I LOVE Christmas and I LOVE the story.  I didn't love this movie. 

Side note: If you see the film in 3-D IMAX, do not sit in the front part of the theater.  The high-flying scenes really do seem like you're on a roller coaster.  I lost my stomach quite a few times!