A CHRISTMAS CAROL review by Steve Friedel

Director Robert Zemeckis' next foray into the burgeoning motion-capture filmmaking format A Christmas Carol is a fair-to-middling approach to the classic (and near-and-dear to my blood-pumper; yes, I have a soul) Charles Dickens tale. However, to write it was better than I expected just isn't saying a whole lot after the "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride"-like advertising blitzkrieg showing the crotchety Ebenezer Scrooge (voiced and body-mocked by Yes Man's Jim Carrey, in one of a multitude of roles... because he can) rocketing thru the streets of London (and what happens to be among a half-dozen rather unnecessary-to-the-story scenes but obviously placed there to showcase the three-dimensional aspect). Hey... CROTCH-ETY ROCKET! Get it? Whatever. Thankfully, the overall visuals transcend those zany thrill rides -- to a degree -- but there are bigger problems abound.

So... without dwelling too much on the plot -- because, dammit, all of us should be pretty familiar with the story by now -- Scrooge is the most miserly of misers who is warned by his seven-years-dead ex-partner's (no, not that kind of partner) ghost, Jacob Marley (Gary Oldman, The Dark Knight), he's to be visited by three ghosts the night of Christmas Eve -- 'cause I guess seven years of watching Scrooge livin' like an ass off the fat of the unfortunate was finally too much for The Almighty to bear (and, yes, there are blatant religious undertones here, so gird your loins accordingly if you're not of the Christian ilk). Basically, this is the "It's Your Life" gameshow tactic used to bring the geezer back to his senses, but it's going to take nothing short of a miracle on the icy streets of Old World England (which is one of the more stunningly created sights, mind you).

Carrey also portrays (according to the campaign) "all three ghosts" -- Xmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, but "playing" the latter of the three is, at best, a stretch considering the blanketed bag o' bones here is nothing more than a pointing shadow (and let's Alan Silvestri's annoying musical score do the talking). And, by some odd choice, Carrey dons a faux-Scottish accent for the two that DO talk, but it's nothing to get too bent out of shape about. Only problem is that these parts are the most light-filled (literally and figuratively), enjoyable parts of the flick... and they're also the shortest. Did Zemeckis feel Mr. Future Spirit's been slighted in previous versions? Because, man oh man, is there just WAY TOO MUCH of this dude -- including a scene that looks like a cross between Disney's animated The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (where Ichabod is being chased by the Headless Horseman) and The Incredible Shrinking Man. In other words, it just had no place or purpose. I wish I could say this was the only overly-long scene, but... nope. And because of that, the pacing suffers tremendously throughout.

As for contemporary animation -- and, if you've read any of my older stuff, you know where I'm going with this -- are they ever gonna conquer the absolute lifelessness of the characters' faces as they converse? I mean, kudos to the movement of the BODY -- not much more they can do with that -- but there is SO much work yet to be done to "perfect" the art of the human face. And it's an ESPECIALLY big problem when the characters are intentionally made to look like their voice-over talent -- you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Case in point: Gary Oldman's Bob Cratchit (yes, he plays multiple characters, too), with a face like a moonpie. I've seen Oldman enough in movies -- hell, I even MET the dude -- to know what he looks like when he talks, and they weren't even close (maybe there was a shortage of those ping-pong ball thingies to put around the guy's lips -- somebody run to Wal-mart, for crying out loud!). At one point, I couldn't quite hear the line of dialogue in one of Cratchit's scenes with Scrooge, but forget lip-reading. I may as well've been watching Burt and Ernie! While this "muttering mouth" works for the Scrooge character, the majority of the others -- including Colin Firth's Nephew Fred, Bob Hoskin's Fezziwig, and Robin Wright Penn's Belle -- have (and I quote Robert Shaw from Jaws) "got lifeless eyes... black eyes... like a doll's eyes." You would have thought Zemeckis would have learned his lesson from his work on (and the subsequent reviews for) both The Polar Express (2004) and Beowulf (2007). Nuh-uh.

But what I find especially troubling is that one of the central, anchoring quotations of Dickens' story is treated with all the seriousness of a South Park episode. When Scrooge tells Marley's ghost he was always a good businessman, Marley angrily/sadly exclaims, "Mankind was my business!" But just before this exchange, Marley's bottom jaw becomes... er... disassembled; the line comes out barely distinguishable and clumsy. And whether it was meant or not, people in our audience were laughing during that line (?). For a theme focused on charity, redemption, and goodwill towards all, this stuck out like a sore thumb for me as an incredibly stupid oversight.

Is the film a "necessary" entry into the Hollywoodized "Carol" family? After much thought, I could have taken or left it, to be honest. Pretty to watch, but nothing all that... special (which I think is what we were going for here, don'tcha think?). Instead, give me an extra helping of the George C. Scott 25-YEAR-OLD (!), TWO-DIMENSIONAL, TELEVISION version over this anytime; it renders this one pretty much useless by comparison.

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