Tiny Tim Cratchit (voice of Gary Oldman) rides on the shoulders of his father Bob (also voiced by Oldman) in Robert Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol.
LITTLE ROCK — The new Disney A Christmas Carol advances motion-capture animation closer to photo-realism. Dazzling, ornate visuals take us to the snowy London of 1837, swooping over its digital rooftops and down its digital chimneys. Faces take on musculature, expression and detail.
Cinematic literalist Robert Zemeckis - who in Forrest Gump had a character say “I’m going to San Francisco” and then scored the scene with the pop song “If You’re Going to San Francisco” - gives us Charles Dickens straight, no chaser. He grasps the tone of the novel, which is darker than most film versions. He lays out the familiar story beats and even more familiar touchstone lines.
But as Jim Carrey’s digital self did little Scrooge dances and collapses into grief, I wanted to see the real Carrey perform.
And I really missed having the great and real Gary Oldman, as Bob Cratchit, registering grief at Tiny Tim’s fate, and heartfelt shock at Mr. Scrooge’s conversion.
What Zemeckis delivers is a spooky Christmas Carol. A creepy quiet hangs over the tale of a wealthy miser who is taught themeaning of Christmas by a series of ghosts - corpses come to life, or in the case of the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come, a spectral shadow, the literal Grim Reaper come to show Scrooge the error andevil of his ways.
The laughs are few and very far between. Carrey’s Ghost of Christmas Past is a candle and the animated version of the actor goofs around with the idea of “flickering.” But that raises the question: “Why cast Jim Carrey if you’re not going to get him to be funny ?”
But the story still works and tugs at the heart. The chilling moments are many, as this gorgeous-looking Christmas Carol embraces, better than most, the novel’s cautionary and always timely message. When it comes to money, love and compassion, stinginess is no virtue. You simply cannot take any of them with you.
MovieStyle, Pages 42 on 11/06/2009
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