A credit flies by during the opening titles of Disney's A Christmas Carol that reads, "Adapted from the classic story by Charles Dickens." Emphasis on that classic part.
Chirstmas Carol is more than a classic novella; it's a holiday tradition. We know the story, we can recite the lines, and everyone has a favorite version (mine: The Muppet Christmas Carol, FTW). That's a lot of baggage.
So how do you make it fresh? If you're Robert Zemeckis, you unleash a motion-capture animated, 3D visual blowout that will warm hearts and send eyes spinning back into skulls.
Think of A Christmas Carol as the Dickins version of Star Tours. Without the restraint of camera angles or live-action actors to worry about, Zemeckis cuts loose. The opening sequence whisks the audience around the hustle and bustle of a London Christmas Eve, soaring over famous landmarks, peering in at busy chefs, zooming through a holiday wreath, and landing on the curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge. Not for the weak stomached.
At times, all the swooping around works against the
film. Disregarding conventional editing
styles, Zemeckis takes a dialogue scene like Fred's inviting Scrooge to
Christmas dinner and dances around the actors with only a cut or two. Impressive, but distracting. After an hour and a half of riding the
holiday roller coaster, the effects dizzied me as much as impressed.
Luckily, Jim Carrey keeps us on board. Underneath the animated cover-up, Carrey takes quadruple duty as Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Unlike his co-stars Colin Firth and Gary Oldman (who play Scrooge's nephew Fred and Jacob Marley/Bob Cratchit/Tiny Tim, respectively), Carrey's overly expressive face is a perfect match for the mo-cap technology. His performance bleeds through his animated exterior unlike anything we've seen in Polar Express or Beowulf, capturing the tiniest of details: the slow lift of a coin or a bite of the lip. He grounds the film while the camera whips all over the place.
The rest of the cast remains stiff; a troop of wooden
puppets, closer to those Byer's Choice Carolers that gave me the willies as a
kid. Gary Oldman's Bob Cratchit is a
goofy little bugger (no Kermit, that's for sure) whose familial problems are
briefly explored, while supporting cast like Bob Hoskins as Fezziwig and Robin
Wright Penn as Belle are mere cameos in the fast-paced plot. And who's this Tiny Tim I keep hearing
about? That "God bless us, everyone!"
kid? Forget any emotional connection,
that's one of his two lines.
The picture springs to life when Zemeckis takes a dark turn into the spiritual world with Jacob Marley's haunting of Scrooge. We've seen version of Marley in chains living out an afterlife of regret, but Zemeckis has turned him into something of a zombie who can barely keep his decaying jaw latched long enough to speak. Upon receiving the news that he'll be visited by three spirits, Scrooge looks out his balcony to see a sky full of ghosts, ooing and booing and flying about. Now I know why they released this so close to Halloween.
For every classic beat Christmas Carol hits, Zemeckis pulls out another creepy twist. Each iteration of the story sees the Ghost of Christmas Present grow old at the end of Christmas night, but have we ever seen him release two fanged children to attack Scrooge before decomposing into a pile of bones? I was wetting myself before the first appearance of Christmas Future, and he's a frickin' shadow monster with two snarling horse-beasts.
The movie is a must-see in 3D. While the commercials will have you believe Scrooge flys over the moon and out into the audience (because they're still advertising the "pop out" effect of 3D), the wowing effect comes from the immersion into the world Zemeckis has created through the use of depth and focus. Whether the foggy streets of gothic London or the festive dance of Fezziwig's Chirstmas party, the film is able to brings you further into a familiar world.
Without it, A Christmas Carol is an overactive lesson in motion capture that features what will be an overlooked tour-de-force from Jim Carrey. The technology is improving, but at the cost of sensible storytelling.
Do you have a favorite version of A Christmas Carol? Did you see this version? Let us know what you think!
