Santikos Cine-opsis

I’ll be the first to admit that when I saw an animated miniature Ebenezer Scrooge falling down a rooftop and slamming into icicles, I thought Robert Zameckis had lost his mind.  I mean, the mo-cap “Beowulf” was pretty cool, but Scrooge as action hero really didn’t sound like a good idea.  However, in spite of my better judgement, I went and saw “Disney’s A Christmas Carol.”  And I liked it.

Well, I liked most of it.  The out of place chase sequences and the conspicuous attempts to make things jump out of the screen at you kept the movie from reaching its true potential.  Like Ebenezer’s obsession with wealth, Zameckis’ greedy approach to 3D motion capture animation tends to drive away the human elements of his movies in favor of unnecessary action scenes that, while flabbergastingly fun to watch, hurt the film as a whole.  But they don’t hurt the fun factor, and if I had a choice between traditional Dickensian sentimentality (read: melodrama) and Zameckis’ carriage-chase escapism, I’d stick with the 3D glasses, knowing full well that the former would be a better piece of art, but the latter would be more entertaining.

And in spite of himself, for the most part, Zameckis stays on point.  Unlike the previous animated Disney version (the one with all the mice), this version feels more authentic, and at times, becomes quite unnerving.  “A Christmas Carol” is a ghost story, after all, and Zameckis never lets us forget that.  From teeth-spitting doorknobs to the shadowy hand of death pointing right at us, the ghoulish apparitions of Ebenezer’s partner Marley (a very creepy and surprisingly funny scene) and the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future are each given plenty of time to work their magic on ol’ Scroogy-pants (although the Christmas carols in the background get a bit old after ghost 1).   But the end result, excesses and all, never made me want to hum-bug it out of the theater.

Another delightful surprise was the vocal talent in “A Christmas Carol,” and by surprise I mean Jim Carrey.  From the Grinch to Count Olaf, Carrey has destroyed many a classic children’s character, and I assumed that his role as Scrooge would follow suit.  But not only does he pull off the gravely intonations of a miserly old moneychanger, but he excels as the voice of the ghosts!  And, not only that, but he manages to handle Scrooge’s catharsis well, making Scrooge sound so positive that the town almost thinks him mad, but not so over the top that we think he sounds like an overacting Jim Carrey (although there were a couple of times that he got close).  Add to that strong performances by Gary Oldman as both Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim (and as the ghost of Marley, whose moment, as I mentioned, was one of the best in the film), Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth, Robin Wright Penn, Cary Elwes, and so on made the film feel so very Victorian.

And visually, the animation was as stunning as it was creepy.  I’ve always found mo-cap to be a conundrum, as it feels realistic but looks fake.  Zameckis has taken this art form about as far as I think it can go here, and the lines on Scrooge’s aged face alone are worth the price of admission.  There are great scenes visually that would be really hard to pull off in a non-CG world.  In particular, the scene where Christmas Present rips off the top of Scrooge’s house and flies around the city in it, sort of like a glass bottomed room, was one of my favorites, and an example of how Zameckis SHOULD have used his skills to enhance the story, not run away from it.  But it still creeps me out that Belle looks like Robin Wright Penn, but not really, or that Old Fezziwig looks like what would happen if Bob Hoskins had his own mini-me.  Even after all these movies, it’s still unsettling to me.

That aside, I think “A Christmas Carol” is a fun way to bring Dickens’ often-told tale back to life.  And even though I’ve seen it a million times in a million different ways, it never hurts to be reminded that it’s better to be generous than gruff, and that we should try to act like it’s Christmas 365 days a year.  Now if we could just edit out that icicle chase scene….