Disney’s 2009 “A Christmas Carol” is finally out on DVD. The studio hoping that the #1 anti-Christmas guy – Scrooge – can make this movie a hit for the second holiday season in a row.
“Disney’s A Christmas Carol” is directed by Robert Zemeckis, who also did the 2004 holiday film, “The Polar Express”. Zemeckis uses the same motion-capture animation process he unveiled in “The Polar Express” in this latest version of Charles Dickens’ classic story of Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts who visit him one Christmas Eve.
The movie stays true to the Dickens story, using dialogue straight from the book. And the tone of the movie is very serious, which surprised me. I thought Disney might lighten things up a bit, especially since they’ve been promoting this as a movie for the entire family.
As you certainly know by now, Jim Carrey is the star of “A Christmas Carol”. Carrey plays eight characters: Scrooge at five different ages and all three ghosts. Incredibly, he did all his work on the film in only 22 days. The motion capture process looks great on most of Carrey’s characters, but not so great on others, including Gary Oldman’s Bob Cratchit and his entire family, including Tiny Tim.
The overall look of “A Christmas Carol” is fantastic. The CGI effects are top-notch. There are several exciting sequences, including some impressive flying scenes and the story does work on you emotionally.
Since I hadn’t read the book or seen any other previous big screen adaptations of “A Christmas Carol” before watching the moive last year, my only experience with the story was with the Mickey Mouse and SpongeBob versions. Trust me, the only similarity between this version and Mickey is that they come from the same company. There are no laughs in “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” and enough intense and scary scenes for parents to think twice before having little ones watching to this movie.I heard from a lot of mothers who thanked me for warning them about the scary elements of this film when it was out last year.
“Disney’s A Christmas Carol” is rated PG, for the scary images and serious themes. It’s appropriate for kids eight and up, but many kids will be disappointed that the film isn’t alot of fun.
On The Official Kid Critic Report Card, “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” gets a B.
Jim Carrey has now played Christmas’s two biggest bad-guys: Scrooge and The Grinch. Who’s next – the Burgermeister Meisterburger?