 Newspaper View
 Print
 Email
 Comment
 RSS
 Bookmark
If you would like to bookmark this article you will need to Login to your tulsaworld.com account
close
A Christmas Carol
Ebenezer Scrooge, voiced by Jim Carrey, is shown in a scene from "A Christmas Carol." AP Photo/Disney, ImageMovers Digital LLC
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
Published: 11/6/2009 2:20 AM
Last Modified: 11/6/2009 5:12 PM
Charles Dickens' story in "A Christmas Carol" is the ultimate tale of redemption, so sturdy that it has survived being retold on film as stealthy drama, Bill Murray farce, Albert Finney musical and Mr. Magoo cartoon, all winningly so.
The message — peace on earth, goodwill toward men, change your ways or you're going to burn — always comes through, no matter the packaging.
This is just as true with the newest take on the seasonal chestnut, which is by far the most vibrant sensory experience of any Ebenezer Scrooge story to date, which is to be expected given the pedigree.
"A Christmas Carol" is a shiny bauble that unwraps in 3-D (also in Imax, where it leaps off the giant screen). It is directed by Robert Zemeckis, who again uses his motion-capture animation style made famous in "The Polar Express," but which has since been refined.
The movie is from Disney, and it feels like a thrill-ride at one of its parks. The eyes of child viewers will bug out at the panorama of visual pleasures, when they are not closed from fright.
There are issues with Zemeckis' screenplay — a tightly edited, hit-the-high-points telling — but never with Jim Carrey's outrageously fun performance or with the fact that this film is true to the novel's genre: This is a ghost story.
The book is filled with pitch-black moments depicting Ebenezer Scrooge as a 19th-century miser visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve, determined to show him how he can profit through charity and
save his greedy soul.
The film doesn't shy away from this dark tone, which may send the youngest Disney fans snuggling into a parent's arms. The opening scene, in which Scrooge inspects the dead body of Marley inside a coffin, sets this tone.
Carrey's character begrudgingly gives a tip to a gravedigger, who holds out for a second coin. Scrooge's hand shakes violently, his glaring scowl growing, as he releases the silver — and then pockets the pair of coins resting on Marley's eyes. That's a chilly start.
Marley's ghost scares soon after, a glowing, bellowing, blue-green specter dragging chains that creep and clank. Although most films depict The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as a black cloak of silence, the filmmakers saddle him aboard a coach pulled by red-eyed horses from Hades, vividly charging at Scrooge through the streets. These scenes are loud, breathless and scary.
They are memorable representations of the ride that Scrooge is intended to take in realizing the error of his ways. But the images of "A Christmas Carol" always take the place of story, to a fault.
No one at this production expects to witness London's National Theater version of Dickens' tale. But what story does survive comes across as almost exclusively those moments from the book that can be transformed into eye-candy extravaganza.
It's not quite to the point that the heart of the story has been ripped out, but enough is absent that adults will be glad they know the story by heart, especially when little ones are tugging on their sleeves, inquiring: "What happened to Tiny Tim? Why did Mr. Scrooge say goodbye to Belle? What's a shilling?"
And yet through it all, the message of "A Christmas Carol" comes through, in a way we've never before seen. The tour de force combo-performances of Carrey and Gary Oldman (who voices Bob Cratchit, Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim) are early Christmas gifts. Very early, with the film released in the first week of November.
A Christmas Carol
Stars: voices of Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman,
Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright
Penn, Cary Elwes
Theaters: (in 3-D Imax): Cinemark Tulsa;
(in 3-D): AMC Southroads 20, Cinemark,
Starworld 20, RiverWalk; (in 2-D): Eton
Square, Owasso, Broken Arrow, Sand
Springs
Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Rated: PG (scary sequences and images)
Quality:   (on a scale of zero to four
stars)
Michael Smith 581-8479
michael.smith@tulsaworld.com
By MICHAEL SMITH World Scene Writer
Newspaper View
Print
Email
Comment
RSS
Bookmark
If you would like to bookmark this article you will need to Login to your tulsaworld.com account
close
 |
|
