Beetle is sadly dissapointed by a Christmas Carol

2009 has quickly become the year of "Could,Woulda,Shoulda". So many films that could have been masterpieces were lowered down to the ranks of acceptable "safe" fare. Unfortunately, A Christmas Carol is one of those films.

I am a huge fan of The story 'A Christmas Carol' and when Robert Zemeckis announced that he would be creating a more faithful version I was enticed. Unfortunately, there was one thing that Robert Zemeckis overlooked; a more faithful version would mean a more frightening version as well, thus the target audience would be reduced. Rob was stuck with a hard decision: Does he go all the way with his new version and thus exclude the kiddie demographic, or does he try to please everyone and lighten the mood in some of the scarier scenes? He made the wrong decision, folks.

The mood of the film is refreshingly dark for most of the film, but Rob never really gives us time to enjoy it. Instead, afraid that he will lose his kid part of the audience, Rob constantly throws movie-killing bits of humor into the dark, scary scenes that both throw off the mood and take away from the story. The humor found in A Christmas Carol feels misplaced and contrived. The humor sadly distracts from the overall quality of the film.

Another problem with the film is the 3-D effects. They're dazzling...maybe TOO dazzling. This is both a good thing...and a VERY bad thing. There are moments where the movie will just stop for a few minutes to show off how cool its 3-D is. Yes, the 3-D is pretty damned cool and they really are a sight to behold on the big screen. You feel like you're zooming along with Scrooge on his journey...it's amazing, but by stopping the film to show us this, it detracts from the story and throws off the pacing of the film. The 3-D feels extremely gimmicky and sticks out from the rest of the film...almost to the point where I'd say see it in 2-D instead.

The film's got a great cast of actors in it, but they are never used to their full potential. Gary Oldman plays the parts of Marley and Bob Cratchit, but sadly is never really given a chance to shine. Most of the scenes featuring him are rushed through for some unexplained reason, as are the scenes featuring most of the other supporting actors including Bob Hoskins, who plays the energetic Fezziwig. Hoskins plays Fezziwig brilliantly and reads his two or three lines with great passion, but is just another small blip on the supporting character radar. It's always sad when a film doesn't take full potential of it's many talented actors.

The only actor that the film thinks really counts is Jim Carrey as Scrooge. He also voices and performs the roles of the Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future. Jim Carrey is usually a phenomenal actor that acts his roles out with great enthusiasm, but in the role of Scrooge he seems a bit off. He does a pretty good Scrooge, but was missing something; I think he was confused if he should play the role seriously or humorously. He constantly switches back and forth from serious to humorous back to serious, to the point where the character itself feels off.

One of the things that the film did well that previous films failed to do was to really make you care for Scrooge and his redemption. It has been the only film to really make me realize that Scrooge is having the ultimate bad days of bad days. Scrooge gets pretty beat up in this one, at times it seems a bit much in fact (The flying over the city then proceeding to fall to his almost death, the chase scene with the Future Ghost, and then the grave scene at the end). His jovial dance when he realizes that he is still alive is really a sight to behold: Scrooge is so thin and weak that I began to think all his excitement at being alive would give him a heart attck.

Robert Zemeckis tried to make a faithful adaptation of everyone's favorite Christmas fable, and he almost did. It is more faithful than most other versions we have seen before, and it felt really cool to view new material from the book that we haven't seen before,but unfortunately he cared more about showboating the new 3-D effects and pandering to everyone than he did about the overall quality of the film. Did I enjoy it? I guess I did, but by making the film more family-friendly he really turned away from the film itself.

A Christmas Carol is an uneven mixture of Humor, heart, and darkness that gives the overall film a weird, off-beat feel. Despite most of its flaws it adds up to a pretty enjoyable, albiet uneven, christmas film,



3 Stars/5 Stars