Disney’s A Christmas Carol . . . Bah! Humbug!

My wife and I went to go see the most recent adaptation of one of my favorite yule tide stories: A Christmas Carol. A movie akin to “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” on must sees during our wintery equinox. Now you may read this review and think I am being hard on Disney’s latest disaster because of my love for the subject matter, alas no, I did not have high hopes for this un-masterpiece after being witness to Jim Carrey’s last holiday wreak in failing to reinvent another timeless classic: How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

If you’re a somewhat preceptive individual you may have realized that I did not enjoy the movie: you’d be correct. It’s hard to know where to start, so I guess I’ll start with the old Hollywood philosophy and or formula: amazing special effects = no need for a plot. Though in this case the tragedy is that the story was predetermined awesomeness. How can you lose the plot when it’s literally there ripe for the taking, and yet in a splendar of CGI extravagance they lost any meaning to “A Christmas Carol” while using the original text almost word for word. I guess it goes to show, writers aren’t always the ones to blame for a bad movie. Vision, actors, directors, producers (whatever they really do) and all kinds of financers and whatnot can play a hand in ruining good material. “It only takes one call to ruin a movie”, right?

And while I agree with some critics, that a darker take on this Christmas classic may befitting of the material and warranted even (thanks Disney for the head’s up on that one, “fun for the whole family” my @$$, this movie so should of had a PG-13 Rating), it isn’t the dark place the film goes so early in the fable that bothered me. Although, if you bring children, they’ll be quivering in (possibly under) their seats before the first spirit ever shows its bobblely head. None of the ghosts: past, present and definitely not future are very comforting. The Ghost of Christmas Present dies laughing while withering away into a grey corpse and then finally a skeleton that blows away. Nevertheless, the true lack this movie portrays is that it has no heart, no innocent. Wha?? I know, I just said I didn’t mind the edginess of the film, but even in a story with dark portents there can be heart, morals, innocence. Regardless, the film is so focused on CGI effects and affecting a tensity in the audience, it skimmed over so many parts that are the heart of “A Christmas Carol.”

Going back, there are the spirits, a must have for this famous telling. Too bad, Jim Carrey couldn’t be more wrong to play them. The first spirit was played with a forced reverence comparable to what I would call the “prayer voice”, a whispery kind of tone that is meant to take on the some holy aspect but sounds more garishly fraudulent than pious. The second spirit was just creepy (not only in the aforementioned scene, but also in his constant guffaws that were, well, creepy) and the third spirit just took the whole dark place to the height of wild, chaotic terror without any finesse. Sure, they added a few unoriginal jokes to take a bit away from the last spirit, but where the audience was most likely meant to be rolling in the aisles, they were just sitting there in unbelief at the length of the “chase scene” that really had no place in the story except to serve as one more antic to distract you from the one-dimensional storytelling throughout the entire movie. It seems to me like the moral of the story told here was if you scare an old man half to death and drop him from incredible heights several times in the coarse of a night he’ll change his dastardly ways.

The story claims that it was Tiny Tim who changed Scrooge’s heart, yet Tiny Tim is mostly glossed over and looks like a healthy little boy who happens to use a crutch. Even the meal served in Bob Cratchit’s house didn’t look at all that meager to me. Nor did the performance make me care much for either of them. I think to sum it all up, if this was the way the tale was originally told, it would have never been timeless nor a classic. More over, I think it’s a sad commentary on where Disney is today, they simply don’t have the heart or the “magic” anymore to regale us with the legend of a once hopeful youth turned into a greedy, misery old man that is made to see the error of his ways when they have yet to learn that lesson themselves. To be honest, I’m not even sure they understood the significance of Tiny Tim being able to say “God Bless us everyone” in the midst of his circumstances, it seemed to be added as merely a staple to the time-honored classic they tried to reinvent.

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That is all.