The first Christmas film kicked off the holiday season with another remake of Charles Dickens', "A Christmas Carol."
Except this time director Robert Zemeckis made it into a 3D, IMAX, CGI extravaganza starring Jim Carrey in a variety of roles, but mainly as ole Scrooge himself. I love this classic tale, and I am willing to give any remake a try, but this one was way too gimmicky for my taste.
One scene dragged on too long to show off the rollercoaster effect of the 3D. On the other hand, I was under the impression this was a children's film and took along a 3 year old.
This film was way too terrifying for children below the age of 10. With jaws falling off, demon-eyed horses and skeletal stalkers, I began to think I was in a scary movie and not a Christmas film to get me in the holiday spirit.
There was even one scene to make me jump out of my seat and I'm 22. Needless to say, my 3-year-old companion did not enjoy herself, so parents beware!
I did enjoy the realistic look of the characters, but I did not feel it was necessary to make the characters look exactly like the actors.
I did not see Gary Oldman anywhere in the novel. It had me wishing that Zemeckis would have just made this a live action movie, instead of animated.
This film did give a more in-depth look at Ebenezer Scrooge before and after the night he is visited by the three ghosts, and I liked the detailed plot line about what makes Scrooge so cold-hearted.
But then I started feeling almost sorry for him and forgetting what a villain he was in the first place.
To sum things up, the movie was all-over the place in terms of tone. One minute, I was in a feel-good Christmas classic and then it jumped to a Stephen King movie and then back to a goofy comedy.
Call me a Scrooge, but I just wish Zemeckis would have kept me off the visual and emotional rollercoaster, and stuck to what makes this movie great: the story the way Dicken's intended it to be told without all the fancy tricks up some director's sleeve.
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