Ghosts of Christmas past return to shake up your holidays
Dickens' classic tale receives much needed facelift this season
Thomas Vo
Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: Detour
| |
|
The first thing that immediately sets Zemeckis' version apart from past versions is its animation: it is pure eye candy. The characters look warped to emphasize their features, yet still look realistic. Colors in the film are beautifully rendered: snow looks like real snow and one can almost feel the warmth of the fire. However, a movie is more than just its looks.
A Christmas Carol stars Jim Carrey as basically all the main characters: Scrooge (as a boy, teenager, young man, middle aged man, old man), the Ghost of Christmas past, the Ghost of Christmas present and the Ghost of Christmas yet to come. Carrey's performances were the highlight of the film. He showed his versatility as an actor through all the successful voices he made up for the characters. Carrey also brought his unique persona into the movie, injecting it with a refreshing bit of lightheartedness.
And the lightheartedness was needed; this version of the tale is heavy. It was rated PG for "scary sequences and images." It earns that rating thoroughly. The movie's first scene features the word "dead" scrawled across the screen and then pans to a dead man resting in a coffin. Within a few minutes the camera travels the city, flashing to poverty stricken boys that are left to battle with dogs over scraps. Later in the film it gets even creepier, such as a chase scene featuring horses that look like they could belong to Satan. The ending is also sickly sweet, especially in contrast to the rest of the film.
In addition to being a dark retelling of the story, the voice acting also reflects that time period: the script is written in old English. Although it is not difficult to understand for most people, I can't help but think that kids might not be able to connect with the film. Zemeckis, unfortunately, is not clear on who the intended audience is.
Although Carrey did a good job with what he was given, Scrooge's character development was not very interesting. I wanted to see more of Scrooge; the audience never really sees him change. He's a mean old man at one point, then a scared old man. Only at the end do we see him as changed, but it's not gradual enough to be believable. A Christmas Carol is full of action, but is limited in its character development.
Robert Zemeckis succeeds in creating a visually stunning version of a classic story, but in the process, he loses something along the way: the characters that make this story so wonderful in the first place. He also creates a film that may be too graphic for younger audiences, which may limit its appeal as a family film. However, like Scrooge, the film actually did put me in the Christmas spirit. Bah, Humbug!
Grade: B-