A Christmas Carol : Jim Carrey is Scrooge in this animated adaptation of a Dicken's classic telling of a definitive Christmas story about a bitter old man who learns to love and care for his fellow man, at Christmas.
Anyone who watches this film should know that, unlike The Polar Express, this Robert Zemeckis adaptation of one of the most memorable Christmas stories is too highly intensified. I mean that in both contexts of visually seeing it and in content for families with very young children.
At its heart, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a ghost story, and not only are the four spirits very creepy at times, but the 3-D technology makes certain scenes as when the Ghost of Christmas Future's red-eyed black stallions jump out at the audience all the more terryfying. And the realistic nature of the motion capture technology often makes the film seem more like live action than animation.
Director Robert Zemeckis continues to create yet another memerable motion capture animation he revolutionized with The Polar Express, and the result is quite breathtaking in A Christmas Carol. From the pimples on an adolescent's face to the coins on a corpse's eyes, the technology available accounts for a remarkable degree of detail. The 3D effects, in particular, are fantastic.
The attention to detail is quite remarkable, with a rubber-faced actor like Carrey as the star, it's no wonder that the characters' expressions and gestures are so startlingly realistic. Of course, the downside to all of the realism is that the ghost scenes are actually really quite frightening. The chilling factor is unfortunate for parents who will naturally assume that animation plus holiday classic equals cinematic fun for the whole family.
It's not a very long film. It's 96 minutes, so more or less roundabout an hour and half, which is good going. It's not too slow to be boring, and not too quick to be rushed. It's just about right, and good for familes.
I give it a 5/10.
NEXT : Disney's Pinocchio.
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