Substantive blogging is on the way, but for right now, I’m just enjoying the relative lull in “OMG ur a humorless feminazi” comments.
So, Jim Carrey decided to take on that holiday favorite, Charles Dickens’s “The Christmas Carol”. “The Christmas Carol”, for all of you who do not live in the western world and eschew all forms of media that aren’t the internet and don’t read, is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a money-lender and landlord in London. Scrooge, as we’re introduced, is a cold-hearted, unkind, cheapskate of a man. He treats everyone terribly- from his employee, Bob Cratchet, to his nephew Fred, to people collecting for the poor- he is polite to the point of rudeness, mean, and just generally a bastard of a man.
Mr. Scrooge goes home one night to the ghost of his late partner, Jacob Marley. Marley has been wandering the world in heavy chains as a consequence of the life he lived (namely, being nearly as big of a bastard as Mr. Scrooge). He’s warning Scrooge that to avoid the same terrible fate as him, he needs to change his ways.* In order to help along this transformation, Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three ghosts.
Scrooge, unsettled by this visit with Marley, but still not entirely sure if it actually happened, is then visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. Scrooge is reacquainted with his younger self- the young school boy that is alone at his school-house for Christmas, Scrooge as an apprentice under the cheerful and kind Fezziwig, Scrooge meeting his love, Belle, and growing away from her as he becomes consumed with greed. This last part so disturbs Scrooge that he begs the spirit to stop tormenting him.
The next spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Present, who shows Scrooge visions of people happily celebrating Christmas all around him- his nephew, the Cratchets, everyone.
The final spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come**, who shows Scrooge a future where he is dead, and no one cares that he is- in fact, many are downright gleeful because they profit greatly from his death. Scrooge vows to better himself, to alter a vision of the future where he is alone and miserable. To demonstrate this, he anonymously sends a huge turkey to the Cratchets, and joins his nephew Fred for Christmas dinner. On Boxing Day, he gives Mr. Cratchet a raise, and the story ends with the narrator promising that the change in Scrooge is permanent.
The Jim Carrey version has this story with the twist in this one is that it’s done in CGI and available in 3D. Hubby and I watched in 3D, and all I can say is “Save your money”. The 3D adds nothing to the story whatsoever. In fact, “Save your money” is probably the short version of this critique. The CGI is deeply in Uncanny Valley-land. Additionally, aside from the creepy near-human characters, this is not a children’s version of A Christmas Carol: this movie demonstrates that to be visited by ghosts would be goddamned creepy. The redemptive aspects seem to be downplayed and instead the whole thing plays as a cautionary tale, down to the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come chasing a miniature version of Scrooge through the gutters of London while leading Hell Horses. The spirits seem like they are stricken with mental diseases- Christmas Past seems to have the personality of an actual flame and comes across as ADHD. Christmas Present is very maniac, and prone to spats of short temper. Jim Carrey did most of the voices- Scrooge, Marley, Past, Present and Yet-to-Come, and you can tell. He does not have the voice range to pull it off. Unless I was missing something, and this movie is trying to make the point that all of this really did all happen in Scrooge’s head, it would have been much smarter to get different voice actors- at least for Marley and Scrooge (I’ve seen a couple good versions where the same voice actor plays for all three ghosts- it can work).
This version also put jokes in places that seemed out of place. For instance, Marley comes in it is quite frightening. I felt they really did a lot to put the build-up in there- the music, the visuals, the sound effect of the chains and money boxes thudding up the steps. Marley is scary. But then, they have his jaw slip out of his kerchief, and he’s using his hands to move his jaw up-and-down to talk. Not only is this funny in a scene that they’ve already spent a great deal of thought and effort into making creepy, it kind of cuts out the importance of the speech he is delivering at the time about how “Mankind should have been my business!”
There were a few things about the movie I thought were really enjoyable. I’m glad they kept in a lot of the original story, including the part where Scrooge sees thousands of ghosts after Marley leaves, and Christmas Present having “Want” and “Ignorance” cling to him. But, generally I thought that movie just wasn’t as strong as it had to potential to be. Even a movie that would have gone with “This is a horror, and this is how we’re playing this story” would have been better for me (although I probably would have had to watch it twice to get over the expectation violation). But, instead they have to put in misplaced jokes and odd scenes (seriously, why does Scrooge need to be miniaturized and chased through storm pipes?) feel like the movie is jerking you around. It’s one of those annoying rollercoaster’s that substitutes whiplash for danger.
* I always sort of wondered about this in the story. Why did Scrooge get this opportunity to turn his life around? Does Marley get anything for warning his friend? It seemed like it was difficult for Marley to talk to Scrooge- what about their friendship made him want to warn his old business associate? There never seemed to be that much love between the characters, and Marley was most definitely a bastard in the story, so what happened to Marley to make him wish to have Scrooge avoid the fate?
** Why didn’t they just say “Christmas Future”?
my favorite Christmas Carol is the Muppets version with Michael Caine as Scrooge. Stadtler and Waldorf play (the) Marley (bros) and the assorted ghosts are appropriate.
Interestingly, the Muppet one is my favorite as well. I was going to do a comparison, but decided that the Muppet version is too esoteric.