Review: A Christmas Carol
New animated version of Dickens classic has razzle-dazzle, but little heart
Last Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009 | 4:31 PM ET
By Lee Ferguson, CBC News
Victorian-era miser Ebenezer Scrooge (voiced by Jim Carrey) is taken on a journey of self-discovery in the animated retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. (Walt Disney Pictures) By now, most of you will be familiar with at least one movie version of A Christmas Carol — be it the revered 1951 film starring Alastair Sim, the larky Bill Murray update Scrooged or the adorable Muppet retelling, in which Michael Caine gets grumpy with Kermit and the gang.
The digital effects are achieved by melding the actors' performances with computer animation — until every character resembles a waxy, soulless machine.
It's easy to see why filmmakers keep revisiting Charles Dickens's 1834 tale. It has good bones and a lot of heart. The story of a miserly curmudgeon who receives a life-changing gift — redemption! — from a trio of visiting ghosts, A Christmas Carol was originally set in squalid Victorian-era London, but its themes are timeless.
That said, Robert Zemeckis's new animated treatment of Dickens's classic is a weird, wildly uneven outing — one that inspired more than one "bah, humbug!" from this reviewer. That the movie often feels as appealing as a lump of coal is surprising, because at the outset, Zemeckis seems slavishly devoted to Dickens, showing great care in depicting the sooty, candlelit interiors and lifting lines of dialogue from the original book. There are some breathtaking moments in these early stages, particularly a sequence in which the camera swoops and careens overtop of every snow-covered rooftop in 1800s London.
When we first meet Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey), he's in the midst of barking orders at his cheery nephew Fred (Colin Firth, who can't hide his discomfort, even with a digital smile affixed to his face) and his long-suffering assistant, Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman). A manic comic with hidden reserves of melancholy, Carrey is clearly itching to stretch himself: he takes on seven roles in the film. He plays Ebenezer from boyhood to old age, as well as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come.
Some of the secondary characters feel slight and show-offy — why does the ghost of Christmas Past sound like the leprechaun from the Lucky Charms commercials? Carrey makes the strongest impression as Scrooge himself. This is no mean feat, considering Carrey's greatest asset — his elastic-band face — is almost completely concealed beneath digital animation. But Carrey still has great presence. This Scrooge has a sour voice and a pronounced hunch, and scuttles about his house on tiny, spindly legs.
Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Present in Disney's A Christmas Carol. (Walt Disney Pictures) The film's digital effects are achieved with performance-capture technology, which melds the actors' performances with computer animation — until every character begins to resemble a waxy, soulless machine. The visuals in Disney's A Christmas Carol might be innovative, but they're also creepy, and it's painful to watch the technology drain the spark out of gifted actors like Gary Oldman and Robin Wright Penn, who both end up looking a little dead behind the eyes.
True to the original novella, Scrooge has encounters with a series of ghosts — one so morbid and grotesque, I fear for children in the audience. These otherworldly exchanges are rushed, and followed by big-budget action scenes that feel ridiculous on the heels of weightier dramatic moments. My memory of the original text is a little hazy, but I'm quite confident Scrooge never rode a rocket-fuelled candle snuffer across the sky, or hurtled through the night on a giant 3-D icicle.
If there's one upside to these needless scenes, it's that they allow Jim Carrey to let loose. As the movie goes off the rails, the actor gets physical, and delivers all of the loopy yelps and gymnastic pratfalls he is known for. One of the most joyous moments in this Christmas Carol arrives near the end, when a reformed Scrooge does a triumphant little jig in his nightshirt. In this instant, Carrey the performer is able to cut through all of the digital smoke and mirrors to give the audience something real. It left me wondering if the movie would have worked better as a live-action film instead.
This outburst nearly saves the film — and don't be surprised if you get misty-eyed during the film's overtly sentimental "God bless us, every one" conclusion. Alas, the warmth of these final moments has a lot to do with the original material. One wishes Dickens's spirit could somehow pay his own late-night visit to Zemeckis, to remind the director of a past where stories had everything to do with flesh and blood characters, long before Hollywood became about box office and so many soulless cartoons.
A Christmas Carol opens Nov. 6.
Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBC News.
