Disney's A Christmas Carol (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) (2009)

As another reviewer stated I also consider myself a Christmas Carol afficionado. I read the book each season and watch every version I own, which is substantial. I find it to be quite faithful to the book exept for the few instances he mentions. Yet, the film does contain other minor details such as the fact that Scrooge was suffering a cold at the time. However, they do not ruin the movie for me at all. Can I do without them? Yes, I can but they do not in any way detract from a wonderful movie that stays very close story-wise and dialogue-wise.

This movie is absolutely gorgeous to view. I can not wait to get this on Blu-Ray. It completely captured the feel of an 1800's England Christmas. I found the ghosts to all be unsettling and as my wife said "That was actually scary!" It may not be for kids to be honest. And I think that was the point this wasn't originally written for children, it is a Christmas ghost story which was a very popular thing to do at the holiday times then. The ghosts weren't there to be nice and helpful, they were in Scrooge's life to matter-of-factly show him how he screwed up. I never got the feeling in any CC media that the ghosts truly cared for Scrooge's well-being.

Anyways, this is now an annual staple for my holiday traditions. P.S., I never really cared for Jim Carrey either.

I couldn't disagree more with those who have given this a low rating. I saw this movie in the theater, in 3D and thought it was one of the better movies of the holiday season. Although I couldn't quite understand why it was released so early, it should have been more of a Christmas time release instead of Thanksgiving. As far as the film itself I thought it was a good update on a classic story. While I don't consider myself an aficionado, I do know the story well and found it stayed true enough to it. The warmth and humanity of the characters is definitely still present. Then of course there is the 3D aspect, which completely blew me away. I've seen most of the 3D releases in the last year or so, and with the exception of Avatar this movie did the best job of utilizing it. Actually, I am more excited about this movie being released in 3D than any other movie, including Avatar. I'm just happy you'll be able to buy this movie alone and not bundled along with a TV. Hopefully this is the start of 3D Blu Ray movies be released minus the bundle. And I know Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is currently available but it's no where as good as this movie is.

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I came with an open mind. This, after all was the story my father had told us children, when we were snuggled up warm in our beds. He would plant a dining room chair in the hallway. And from memory he recited "the story of Scrooge." It was a little frightening, to be lying there in darkness, a bit of light streaming in from the hallway, as your father's voice suddenly turned all funny. He became, in turn, three spirits voices different from Scrooge's own.

Dad did that each Christmas eve. Until we grew "too old for that," as he explained one year while putting his shaving soap on the tree, after putting up all the decorations, including the battered angel the one my Mom got, that first Christmas in 1936 when Dad planted his first kiss on her lips, as they danced (he said) to English band leader Ray Noble's THE TOUCH OF YOUR LIPS.

Pardon my reverie . . . I just wanted to establish my credentials, for saying . . .

This is not merely the best version of my favorite story (Dad would tell you that; if he were alive this would be his 92nd Christmas). No, no. This is the most amazing "movie experience" that I have ever known. I cannot imagine how any film maker(s) could ever top this.

They had me hooked from the opening. The camera shows a beautifully bound copy of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. An invisible hand opens to the first page and those very words my own father composed . . .

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good . . . for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

We see a corpse, its eyes held shut with pennies. Scrooge himself removes them from the eyes, at the end of the scene saying, without shame to the undertakers, while rubbing the coins together between thumb and finger, "Tuppence is tuppence!" The subtle change in the undertaker's face -so subtle you might miss it in the half light of the almost dark room -is one of dismay at seeing someone THAT cheap. The facial expression borders on horror.

Out in the street, children stop playing and dogs duck into alleys at Mr. Scrooge's approach, on his way to his place of business, with its gilt-lettered sign, "Scrooge & Marley Co." That will also be the closing scene of the movie, with Scrooge seen through frosty windows to be dancing with sheer, child-like joy, while outside, Bob Cratchit, for the very first time, turns to the `camera' and addresses us:

(Those very words my father composed out of thin air, Christmas 1949!)

"Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew [and] ever afterwards, it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"

I could share with you a hundred little details (the sort of details that otherwise concern "God and the Devil"). But "Let there be light!" sums up the effect on your eyes, as we see clearly despite only the very faintest light sources: and that is what sets this movie apart from any other ever made.

You're not conscious of it at first. Then it dawns on you. An entire scene has been done in the light of a distant street lamp. The lamp (never seen) is about 50 feet to your left. Your eyes are drawn to the wrought iron fence outside Scrooge's rather magnificent home. The camera goes in tight, and the texture of the wrought iron you know the tiny little waves made by a ball peine hammer on the surface of the metal when it was forged . . . the light from that unseen street lamp, 50 feet distant, is just enough for you to see a glint of yellow on the shiny black metal finish.

This `cinematography' working at light levels so low, they could never be captured by a digital `film' camera is repeated in scene after scene. It makes the sunshine on Scrooge's face, and on Tiny Tim, held aloft on Scrooge's shoulder at movie's end so . . . welcome! Light has been used (finally!) to underline Scrooge's utter, endless joy (your own too).

I don't know if you, like me, will sit there, tears of joy streaming down your face, watching the closing credits. Only three other people were left in the theatre as the scroll of credits reached its end. (I watched this one with my mentally-handicapped friend "Michael" please see our review of the last `best' Christmas movie "POLAR EXPRESS").

A couple and their 14 year old son sitting just ahead of us, delayed their departure, putting on their coats, discreetly so as not to block the view of the only two persons left watching intently. As if to explain my tear-stained face, I said to the woman (an investment counselor as it turns out): "I have to see who wrote that stirring `carol' --a (mainly) men's choir led by a truly great tenor. Sure enough, the music was written by the last great film score composer, Alan Silvestri. He co-wrote all those wondrous songs like "When Christmas Comes to Town" for Polar Express; all the great incidental music for "Forrest Gump" too!

The couple's son explained how the 3-D glasses work. Oh yes. His mother had opened our conversation saying, "I actually caught one of those snowflakes" (felt it in her hand). Her son said (not convincingly to his Dad) "the snow looks (better) the closer you are to the screen." Together, they noticed that my friend Michael was still wearing his 3-D glasses, while sipping the last of his diet coke.

"Michael," I said, "is from a L'Arche home," waiting to see if the term `registered.' "That's for mentally-handicapped," volunteered Michael. Oh yes, and Michael agreed with me when I said, "that's the best movie I have ever seen."

Mark Blackburn

Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

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The story of "A Christmas Carol" and its themes haven't been fresh in people's minds for well over 100 years, which is why the new film adaptation by Robert Zemeckis is so surprising. This is, from my perspective, the definitive version a sumptuous visual feast that in no way compromises the drama, excitement, and hope of the Charles Dickens classic. Its greatest achievement is not reducing itself to the level of jolly Christmas clichés. The streets and buildings of nineteenth-century London are brightly coated with snow, yet they betray the cold reality of poverty and despair. And Ebenezer Scrooge, having been played by many, many actors over the years, finally looks like the ancient, decrepit, bitter man I always imagined him to be; his face doesn't show the slightest trace of warmth, humor, or charm.

The film's success can be attributed to Zemeckis' love affair with special effects, which in this case involves the same motion capture technology he employed in "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf." This allows for the creation of characters caught in that delightful gray zone between real and unreal. Some are more exaggerated than others; Scrooge a little too tall, a little too thin, a little too hunched over is a menacing physical representation of his own anger and resentment. The Ghost of Christmas Past, an elfin wraith with a breathy voice and a head made of fire, is as slight, slender, and soft-spoken as a candle. The Ghost of Christmas Present is a loud and jovial Father Christmas figure, whose laugh is just as big as his body, perhaps bigger. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a silent yet frightening skeletal phantom made out of shadows.

Scrooge and the Ghosts are all played by Jim Carrey, which hardly comes as a shock since he has an affinity for variety of character and over the top performances. Other actors include Gary Oldman as Bob Crachit, Tiny Tim, and Jacob Marley, whose postmortem appearance in Scrooge's bedchamber is intensely creepy, just as it should be. Robin Wright Penn plays both Scrooge's younger sister, Fen, and his neglected fiancée, Belle. Bob Hoskins plays old Fezziwig, a man so thoroughly in the Christmas spirit that he and his wife defy gravity as they dance. Colin Firth plays Scrooge's hopelessly optimistic nephew Fred, quite possibly the only person who thinks his uncle is worth addressing in a friendly manner.

As Scrooge is taken on his journey of redemption, both he and the audience are treated to fantastic aerial tours of London, with shots that swoop and soar over rooftops, through windows, and around street corners. 3-D technology, normally so unimpressive, is here perfectly utilized, allowing for one of the most immersive environments of any recent animated film. One of the most stunning sequences involves a spectral carriage chasing a shrunken Scrooge up and down dark, snowy cobblestone streets; it's not only an astounding visual achievement, it's also an exhilarating thrill ride. Harkening back to the roller coaster train sequences created for "The Polar Express," Zemeckis proves that you should stick with what works best.

There are also some equally effective quiet moments, such as the opening shot, which pays homage to classic Disney animated films with the opening of a book. Other moments are surprisingly powerful, as when a grieving Bob Cratchit, his eyes red with tears, seems to be staring directly at Scrooge even though he can't really see him (Cratchit, in that moment, is nothing more than a vision of the future). I also appreciated the shot of doomed ghosts floating just outside Scrooge's window; some of them act humorously, banging their heads against their chain boxes, and yet we can't help but feel sorry for them.

The entire film embodies a darker, shivery tone not to the point of becoming a computer-animated horror film, but certainly beyond the colorful whimsy of the average Christmas special. This, I believe, truly captures the tone of Dickens' original story, which doesn't spare the reader the hardships of destitution, disease, and loss. Consider Bob Cratchit's family; they do make merry of themselves on Christmas Day, but they also live a meager existence, and there's always the sense that, should nothing about their situation change, they could end up with even less.

Robert Zemeckis created a perennial holiday classic with "The Polar Express," and I think he may have done it again with "A Christmas Carol." Yes, we have seen this movie before, and yes, its message is far from original. But there's no denying the fact that it's sending a good message, where love, compassion, and the possibility of hope reign supreme. There's also no denying that, with visuals this striking, it practically begs to be seen, especially in 3-D. This is one of the year's best looking animated films, so richly detailed, so sharply defined, so gloriously shot. It creates a mood, effectively evoking feelings of warmth and tenderness without becoming sappy or mindlessly cheerful. That above all made seeing this film an absolutely beautiful experience, one that I recommend to everybody.

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I was expecting to dislike this film. The trailers for it made it seem like sugar-coated ephemera with little relation to Charles Dickens' original novella. Thankfully, the publicity was misleading. Dickens' subtitle for his tale was "A Ghost Story." And indeed he filled his prose with deliciously grotesque descriptions of London's dark alleyways (think Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel), a brooding sense that Scrooge has long been due his comeuppance, and, of course, the ghosts themselves. This film doesn't shy away from these darker elements of the story and perhaps comes closer than any other version to capturing its suspense. (The one exception is the classic 1951 Scrooge, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Alistair Sim, with its atmospheric black-and-white cinematography.) On one hand, this is a plus for fans of the book. On the other hand, as with 2007's Bridge to Terabithia, parents unfamiliar with the source material may be misled into thinking the film is lighter than it actually is, resulting in much disgruntlement. I fall into the former category and was able to relish the film as a genuine ghost story. Unfortunately, I found the film's stylistic and cinematic finesse often came at the expense of narrative depth.

The title sequence displays Zemeckis' eye for detail. He quite effectively evokes the Dickensian London: dirty, mean, teeming with life and social inequity. This is no idealized, picturesque Christmas town, but a city in the midst of an Industrial Revolution. Once the dialogue ensued, I was pleased to see the script was not watered-down for younger viewers, but borrows liberal chunks of Dickens' prose. Nuances in the text left out of other versions are presented here. We also see, for instance, Bob Cratchit "[go] down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys... in honour of its being Christmas Eve" and how "the fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of [Scrooge's] house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold."

The performance capture cinematography itself can be quite stunning. Zemeckis' intention seems to have been to bring to life the classic illustrations of John Leech and Arthur Rackham as opposed to straight realism. The result is somewhat uneven. While some of the character designs seem strikingly realistic, others (like Scrooge himself) are exaggerated caricatures. It takes some time to adjust to this half-realistic, half-illustration approach. Jim Carrey's performance (as Scrooge and all three ghosts) is impressive in its range and ability to convey subtext. At points I feel he's let down by his age (or lack of it) when his voice doesn't quite convey the gravitas of years of loneliness. At other points, elements of his shtick poke through in Scrooge's face and mannerism. Although such moments break up the heaviness of much of the film, it sometimes seems anachronistic. Overall, however, he lends genuine depth and pathos to Scrooge and mirth with a slight undertone of grim seriousness to the Ghost of Christmas Present.

One misstep in the design is Jacob Marley's Ghost, which I found more hokey than frightening. Gary Oldman's voice performance is certainly no patch on the hair-raising portrayals of Michael Hordern (1951) or Frank Finlay (opposite George C. Scott in the brilliant 1984 television version). But the three Spirits of Christmas are imaginatively done. This may just be the first time the Ghost of Christmas Past has been depicted as Dickens described him, dunce cap and all. The Ghost of Christmas Present's aging is quite effective, evoking elements of symbolism lacking in other versions. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come gets an interesting treatment, emerging out of Scrooge's own shadow. Also of special note is the musical score by Alan Silvestri which incorporates traditional Christmas carols at key moments. At points, the music can be a little overwrought, insisting too emphatically that the audience notice aspects of the unfolding drama that might be better accompanied by silence, but generally Silvestri alternates between festive buoyancy and ghostly suspense quite effectively.

All that said, the film unfortunately wastes a lot of time on gratuitous scenes that do nothing to advance Dickens' story and exist solely to justify the 3D experience for moviegoers. I wouldn't have a problem with this (the scenes are thrilling enough on my moderately large HDTV; I can imagine they'd be amazing on the big screen in 3D), except that these scenes often come at the expense of narrative. As faithful as the screenplay is in places, a lot of good material is sacrificed for scenes in which Scrooge is flying, falling, or fleeing for no apparent reason. The most conspicuous is one other reviewers have mentioned: a large chunk of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come sequence is devoted to a scene in which Scrooge is chased by a black hearse. On one hand, this underscores the fact that Scrooge does not have many Christmases left. On the other hand, the scene was several minutes long and wastes valuable time that could have been spent on a touching moment from the book in which Bob Cratchit mentions having met Scrooge's nephew Fred at Tiny Tim's grave site. The result? The characterization loses out much of the time to the visuals. The scenes depicting Ebenezer's past and fall into his present miserly loneliness and those featuring the Cratchit family at home, for instance, feel much less developed than in other versions. Tiny Tim himself, the subject of much anxiety and affection in the original novella, gets almost no treatment here at all beyond his obligatory "God bless us, everyone."

This lack of characterization is what prevents this version and Carrey's Scrooge, impressive and insightful as it is, from becoming as iconic as Sim or Scott or Patrick Stewart in his one-man audio version or even Michael Caine in the surprisingly faithful Muppet version. With all the attention paid to the stunning 3D effects, Carrey's Scrooge doesn't get the opportunity to be fleshed out into all of its three dimensions. Less time devoted to scenes extraneous to the action and more devoted to the preliminary damning and ultimate reclamation of his soul (the terms in which Dickens described this story), and we could had something more substantial. It's definitely not a lost opportunity. What's here is engaging and often gripping, but I didn't get the sense of catharsis I had with more dialogue-driven (as opposed to visual-driven) versions of the work. If Amazon would let me, I'd rate it 3.5 stars.

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