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By James White, MSN Movies

A Christmas Carol: Excited?

Robert Zemeckis is at it again – combining classic literature with the latest in performance capture filmmaking technology. This time, the target for his CG-wizardry is a story that has been filmed once or twice in the past –Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Zemeckis has roped in Jim Carrey (playing Scrooge, all the ghosts and a couple of other characters) to star in this latest re-telling for Disney. Will it win Christmas cheer from audiences? Or will it find a lump of coal in its box office stocking?
A Christmas Carol (© Disney)
YES!
 
It looks dazzling
You’ve got to hand it to Zemeckis – A Christmas Carol looks like what he was working up to when he made Polar Express and even Beowulf. The new film – we’ve seen some of the footage – impresses with the sort of amazing visuals that the CG ‘toon-loving director is known for, and that his favourite format can deliver. Truly different ghosts? A shrunken Scrooge sliding around a roof? Easy…
 
Carrey’s a good choice
Love him or loathe him, you can’t argue that Jim Carrey doesn’t know how to deliver a great physical performance. And since Zemeckis’ technology can capture his work and extend it even further, shoving the rubber faced and limbed comic thesp into a sensor-dotted leotard makes a lot of sense, since he can let himself go wild for the ghosts and Scrooge and still feel like part of the world.
 
Dickens is a good start
Many of today’s CG cartoons are castigated for preferring cool ideas and flashy visuals above solid storytelling. It’s tough to argue against tackling Dickens, as he certainly knew how to spin a yarn. So the film will have a solid base from which to build up its plot.
 
 
NO!
 
…But it’s still a well-worn story
A Christmas Carol? Again? Really? One of these days, RZ is going to have the bite the bullet and come up with something original, instead of taking his stories from kids’ books, ancient poems and endlessly-adapted Brit lit. Yeah, Carol is a solid little story but when even the Muppets have had a crack at it, not to mention every primary and secondary school for their Christmas play, then you know it’s time to move on to something else.
 
The CG still isn’t quite perfect
While he’s made great strides between the glassy-eyed zombie children of Polar Express and Beowulf’s muscular warrior, the performance capture style of filmmaking still has a little way to go before it masters humans and the more subtle sides of nature. 
 
Did Carrey really have to do it all?
Having the technology be able to let an actor play pretty much any and all characters they want is lovely for them and the director, we’re sure; we’re just not as sure that we want Jim Carrey playing so many parts. He’s got the physical chops, but couldn’t some other, even more talented actors have tackled the ghosts?
 
Excite-O-Meter rating: 3/5
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