A Christmas Carol

Review By: Ryan Hamelin
RyanHamelin@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: A-

Well that sure wasn’t the movie I was expecting to see when I walked into the theater. Granted, I didn’t have very high hopes for Robert Zemeckis’s retelling of the single most adapted story ever written, and I’m still not a hundred percent behind his belief in motion capture as the future of the medium, but for the first time he’s actually provided me with solid evidence of what the technology has under the hood and it is truly breathtaking. Not Avatar breathtaking to be fair, but far beyond anything you saw in The Polar Express or Beowulf.

Let’s begin with the good. The 3D transfer is subtle enough to avoid pandering to the classic tropes of children’s fare where things pop out of the picture obnoxiously or characters push themselves through the screen and into the audience. The depth exists, but isn’t forced on the viewer, and has more of a living painting aesthetic than something out of a creepy wax museum diorama. The flying sequences, and there are several, are among the best uses of 3D I’ve witnessed, really harnessing the sensation of hurtling through the air to an almost unsettling degree. My bet is that it will be just as beautiful in 2D, just without the added rush.

Jim Carrey’s Scrooge is undeniably a perfect fit from both a casting and conceptual level. You can see every facet of the performance emanating through the character, and for an actor like Carrey who thrives on his lack of subtlety, the honesty and simplicity of the acting here is the foundation of the believability of the entire world. Everything hinges on us identifying with old Ebenezer, and thanks to the artists working overtime behind the scenes, we are able to do so like never before.

The script itself is also a wonderful adaptation of the source material, drawing heavily on the kind of dialogue that feels as though it was imprinted in our cultural upbringing since birth. There is a definite comfort level at work here, and even when the film strays from the beaten path on occasion, we never get the sense that the tangents aren’t serving the story, unlike many sequences in Zemeckis’s previous Christmas themed exploit. He serves as both writer and director here, and the loving care behind every shot is a wonder to behold. Sure we have one unnecessary chase sequence involving a transformation of physical size, but it can be forgiven in an otherwise wonderful retelling.

The bad here is never truly awful, but is just enough to slide this one out of contention for the greatest production the story has ever known. The aforementioned chase sequence not withstanding, there are plenty of moments where the motion-capture just doesn’t work very well. It’s surely more hits than misses this time around, and it can be so incredibly lifelike, but at its worst it still looks like some variation on the Playdo your younger relatives may be busying ...