A Christmas Carol

Review by Jason Gaston

We all know the classic story of Ebenzer Scrooge, right?  Well, that's the problem... we all know it.

This new motion-capture CGI extravaganza is very impressive, that's for sure, but the rub with it all is that the story has been around for ages, it's known by billions of people, and the movie follows it almost word for word.  There is no big surprise or any light bulb of innovation during the movie's entire run, just an age-old story told with wax cadavers with dead eyes.

Of course, to insult this story is to insult one of the greatest stories of the last millennium.  The story is just fine - one of my favorites, as a matter of fact.  My objection is what is done with it.  To re-tell a story that has been told so many times over and over again, you have to do something new with it: Something unexpected otherwise you just sit in a theater expecting the expected.

So Disney's A Christmas Carol won't surprise you an iota.  That's fine, let's say you're one of those boring moviegoers who hate to be surprised by anything.  What can you expect?

Well, truth be told, there are times that the 3D experience of A Christmas Carol is a sight to behold as long the camera doesn't get too close to the character's faces.  Then, you realize you're watching a Christmas movies with reanimated corpses.

Jim Carrey supplies the voices and the visages for Scrooge and the three main ghosts which, after a while, becomes a little annoying.  It seems like the makers of this movie were counting on Carrey's star power to make a little extra mint and, in doing so, ripped much of the soul out of this film.

There is not a lot to say about this movie.  If you like the story of A Christmas Carol, you will like the story of this film because they are one in the same.  Personally, I found the lack of originality, the inhumanity of the characters, and the over reliance on a big name star too off-putting.  If anything, this fable about the true meaning of Christmas does more for the commercialization of it than anything else.