Optimist With Doubts wrote:

I am such a whore for Christmas carol I love every adaptation, even the crappy tv ones. I might even watch ghosts of girlfriends past one day. So I will catch this one.

I completely agree, and I love the book, too. Dickens' language is so beautiful to listen to. And the story is wonderful as well. Neither get old no matter how many times I hear them. In fact, the highlight of my theatre career was getting to play Scrooge in a high school production of Christmas Carol. (The director didn't set out to cast a female but I insisted on auditioning because I loved the character so much, and he said I ended up being the one who could handle the language the best. It worked out pretty damn well.)

Best version to me by far is Alastair Sims. He's one of my favorite old-time actors anyway, and this is without a doubt one of his finest performances. That scene at the end where he's sitting at his desk waiting for Bob to come in to work (and then right after, when he gives him a big raise) is just beautiful, and never fails to make me happy.

Sorry for the double post...don't want to sit around waiting for someone to revive this so I can give my two cents though.

Just got back from seeing it. As a big (like, HUGE) fan of the original story, I really enjoyed the fact that they kept so true to the lines and dialogue from the book. When I can quote great chunks of Dickens along with the movie, that's a good sign (at least for me, I'm a lit nerd ).

Animation: beautiful. Acting: fantastic, especially Jim Carrey, who I was SURE would be distracting, especially being in all three major roles, but no, he did a wonderful job. Colin Firth as Scrooge's nephew was actually the standout bit of casting for me; he was absolutely letter perfect. I honestly don't think I've ever seen a better take on the character, actingwise or lookswise. This will never, ever replace the Alastair Sims version, but its a damn good one nonetheless.

Really, there is only one big flaw, but that flaw is fucking HUGE, and, while it doesn't kill the movie, it does take everything the movie (and the story itself) does well and brings it to a grinding halt. Someone, in infinite stupidity, decided that A Christmas Carol needed action scenes. No, seriously. I'm not talking about the cool effects of Scrooge and the various ghosts flying around London, those work well enough, but give me a break: Christmas Past launching Scrooge through the air like a rocket ship? And (worst and most drawn out of all) a five minute sequence of Scrooge being chanced by the devil-horse drawn buggy (yes you read that right) of Christmas Past? This is a Christmas Carol, not The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This story is supposed to be a quiet one, about one single man, his life, his emotions, his choices, and the change that is planted and grows throughout the course of the story. Every single time you loose focus of this to pause for a CGI jerkoff, you ruin the (absolutely perfect) pacing of the story, and force people to refocus once things calm down again. This is not, NOT good. Its distracting, kills the mood, and ultimately undermines the story itself. Boo to that.

With that pretty large caveat though, this version is still damn good. I like how they handed all the ghosts, especially Past. Its always fun to see how movies handle Past, since he's undoubtedly the ghost that allows the most leeway in terms of design and interaction. They did very cool things with him here. Christmas Present was the way he always is; deviating from his classic image at this point would probably be a bad idea. And Christmas Past...was a little weird. Still unsure if I like it. I'm willing to accept, if not embrace, it, lets leave it that way.

ReeperTheSeeker wrote:

your assessment is the same as moviebob's. I'm actually curious to see this movie now, i just might over the weekend. Thanks for the review hawk!

Moviebob reviewed this one! How did I miss that! I watch all of his reviews! Must go seek it out!

Glad we agreed though; we do tend to have similar taste which is why I like him so much.