WARNING--LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD.
I am somewhat of an aficionado of the Carol so I really looked forward to Disney's latest release. I had really hoped that Robert Zemeckis would work his magic but, unfortunately, like most adapters of the Carol he felt the need to "improve" it. What he ended up doing was somehow removing most of the warmth and humanity from Dickens' well-loved story.
The movie starts by showing Scrooge removing the coins from the eyes of his late partner, Jacob Marley's, corpse. Yes, it shows that he is a miser it also shows he has no regard for, and almost contempt for, the one man in his life who was probably as close to a friend as he ever had. This scene was totally unnecessary, the story is over 150 years old, and we all KNOW that Scrooge is a stingy miser.
The first part of the movie is lighted in an authentic manner giving everything a dark and gloomy look. Unfortunately this darkness pretty much negates the 3-D effect. In fact the 3-D effect is pretty much negligible throughout the film, adding little to it. The only time it is clearly in 3-D is when it is snowing and the snow seems to be landing in your lap.
I will admit that Mr. Zemeckis uses much of the original dialog from the book throughout this movie but most of the action is heavily modified or totally new, and is, to anyone who is familiar with the book, intrusive and irritating.
For example, in the book the door knocker changes into Marley's face and then disappears. Here it not only appears but also screams in Scrooge's face causing him to fall down the front steps.
When Marley enters the room he doesn't just enter the room, he throws several of the heavy boxes he is chained to through the door first.
When the ghost of Christmas Past appears he looks like a candle and his head is, in fact, a candle flame floating above his body. At the end of this session Scrooge jams the candle-snuffer over the ghost's head just as in the book. Unlike the book he holds on to the snuffer and it suddenly blasts off like a rocket taking him high into the sky, then disintegrates and leaves him flying. He sails past the face of the moon in a scene reminiscent of E.T.s famous scene then falls seemingly miles toward the ground before waking up on the floor beside his bed. The whole segment is gratuitous and, quite frankly, childish.
When the Ghost of Christmas Present appears the ceiling in Scrooge's room is suddenly about 50 feet high. The Ghost looks exactly like Jim Carrey except with a beard and his expressions are the same smirking expressions that Carrey usually displays making the Ghost, at least to me, very unpleasant.
One of the things that made this segment so important in the book was that the Ghost took Scrooge around London and let him mingle with the people (albeit invisibly) to get a feel of the holiday spirit. Here, the Ghost apparently lifts the upper story from Scrooge's house and they fly around the city in it. Part of the floor becomes transparent and Scrooge observes everything as if on a television screen. Yes, he sees what's going on but, he does not mingle and there is no feeling of his gaining humanity.
At the end of this segment the Ghost says that he only lives for one season and abruptly ages, dies (while still laughing Ho, Ho, Ho) rots and turns into a skeleton, then disintegrates into dust and blows away.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come segment is, quite frankly, very frightening. Unlike most versions of the Carol the Ghost is mostly shown only in the shadow and becomes solid only rarely. There is a long segment which I found to be not only frightening to a younger child but totally outside the spirit of the book, gratuitous, and frankly stupid. The Phantom Hearse, mentioned only briefly in the book, chases a terrified Scrooge for what seems like miles. For some unexplained reason Scrooge suddenly shrinks until he is smaller than a mouse, he slides along a rooftop smashing into icicles, then falls off the roof and lands in the bag of the charwoman, Mrs. Dilber, who is taking Scrooge's belongings to sell. Scrooge witnesses her total lack of feeling for him and is aghast at how easily she stole things from him, still not realizing that in this future he is dead.
In the graveyard scene Scrooge, who is now again full size, is understandably terrified and, as in several other versions, he falls into his own open grave and he, and the audience, realizes that it ends in Hell. He is, of course, saved and reformed in the end but the feeling is not that he was reformed so much because of what he learned as that he is frightened into it.
Throughout the movie Scrooge is thrown, launched, battered and generally physically abused for no apparent purpose and with no apparent damage. The ghosts, up to and including Marley, do not seem to be the friendly, helpful and caring spirits of the book but seem, instead, to be enjoying making Scrooge suffer rather than helping him to learn.
Overall I found the movie to be cold, depressing and one of the least satisfying versions of A Christmas Carol that I have ever seen. I own more than 20 different versions of this story on tape and DVD. This version will NOT be part of my collection.
I am somewhat of an aficionado of the Carol so I really looked forward to Disney's latest release. I had really hoped that Robert Zemeckis would work his magic but, unfortunately, like most adapters of the Carol he felt the need to "improve" it. What he ended up doing was somehow removing most of the warmth and humanity from Dickens' well-loved story.
The movie starts by showing Scrooge removing the coins from the eyes of his late partner, Jacob Marley's, corpse. Yes, it shows that he is a miser it also shows he has no regard for, and almost contempt for, the one man in his life who was probably as close to a friend as he ever had. This scene was totally unnecessary, the story is over 150 years old, and we all KNOW that Scrooge is a stingy miser.
The first part of the movie is lighted in an authentic manner giving everything a dark and gloomy look. Unfortunately this darkness pretty much negates the 3-D effect. In fact the 3-D effect is pretty much negligible throughout the film, adding little to it. The only time it is clearly in 3-D is when it is snowing and the snow seems to be landing in your lap.
I will admit that Mr. Zemeckis uses much of the original dialog from the book throughout this movie but most of the action is heavily modified or totally new, and is, to anyone who is familiar with the book, intrusive and irritating.
For example, in the book the door knocker changes into Marley's face and then disappears. Here it not only appears but also screams in Scrooge's face causing him to fall down the front steps.
When Marley enters the room he doesn't just enter the room, he throws several of the heavy boxes he is chained to through the door first.
When the ghost of Christmas Past appears he looks like a candle and his head is, in fact, a candle flame floating above his body. At the end of this session Scrooge jams the candle-snuffer over the ghost's head just as in the book. Unlike the book he holds on to the snuffer and it suddenly blasts off like a rocket taking him high into the sky, then disintegrates and leaves him flying. He sails past the face of the moon in a scene reminiscent of E.T.s famous scene then falls seemingly miles toward the ground before waking up on the floor beside his bed. The whole segment is gratuitous and, quite frankly, childish.
When the Ghost of Christmas Present appears the ceiling in Scrooge's room is suddenly about 50 feet high. The Ghost looks exactly like Jim Carrey except with a beard and his expressions are the same smirking expressions that Carrey usually displays making the Ghost, at least to me, very unpleasant.
One of the things that made this segment so important in the book was that the Ghost took Scrooge around London and let him mingle with the people (albeit invisibly) to get a feel of the holiday spirit. Here, the Ghost apparently lifts the upper story from Scrooge's house and they fly around the city in it. Part of the floor becomes transparent and Scrooge observes everything as if on a television screen. Yes, he sees what's going on but, he does not mingle and there is no feeling of his gaining humanity.
At the end of this segment the Ghost says that he only lives for one season and abruptly ages, dies (while still laughing Ho, Ho, Ho) rots and turns into a skeleton, then disintegrates into dust and blows away.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come segment is, quite frankly, very frightening. Unlike most versions of the Carol the Ghost is mostly shown only in the shadow and becomes solid only rarely. There is a long segment which I found to be not only frightening to a younger child but totally outside the spirit of the book, gratuitous, and frankly stupid. The Phantom Hearse, mentioned only briefly in the book, chases a terrified Scrooge for what seems like miles. For some unexplained reason Scrooge suddenly shrinks until he is smaller than a mouse, he slides along a rooftop smashing into icicles, then falls off the roof and lands in the bag of the charwoman, Mrs. Dilber, who is taking Scrooge's belongings to sell. Scrooge witnesses her total lack of feeling for him and is aghast at how easily she stole things from him, still not realizing that in this future he is dead.
In the graveyard scene Scrooge, who is now again full size, is understandably terrified and, as in several other versions, he falls into his own open grave and he, and the audience, realizes that it ends in Hell. He is, of course, saved and reformed in the end but the feeling is not that he was reformed so much because of what he learned as that he is frightened into it.
Throughout the movie Scrooge is thrown, launched, battered and generally physically abused for no apparent purpose and with no apparent damage. The ghosts, up to and including Marley, do not seem to be the friendly, helpful and caring spirits of the book but seem, instead, to be enjoying making Scrooge suffer rather than helping him to learn.
Overall I found the movie to be cold, depressing and one of the least satisfying versions of A Christmas Carol that I have ever seen. I own more than 20 different versions of this story on tape and DVD. This version will NOT be part of my collection.