A Christmas Carol

by KYW's Bill Wine

This version of A Christmas Carol might scare the dickens out of the wee ones.  But visually at least, it wows the rest of us.
 
The motion-capture process showcased by director Robert Zemeckis in 2004's Polar Express and again in 2007's impressive Beowulf is once again on display in A Christmas Carol. 

But the technology that combines live performance and animation has been improved to the point that what many complained about as the "dead eye effect" among the human characters is no longer a problem in the director's third foray into the brave new world of performance capture.
 
This latest among the many -- maybe too many --  big-screen incarnations of the Charles Dickens' 1843 novella that became a yuletide classic is an animated retelling of the tale that's relatively faithful to the source material, with nearly all the dialogue taken from the original text.  This may undercut the usual cheeriness and dilute the "fun" factor a bit, but it's an otherwise admirable approach. 
 
Jim Carrey gives voice -- and form -- not only to cranky Ebenezer Scrooge but to all three Chistmas ghosts as well.  Yep, he alone also plays the three Scrooges.
 
Talk about Carreying a movie!
 
Of course, some of Carrey's co-stars also take on multiple roles, including Gary Oldman as Bob Cratchit, Marley, and Tiny Tim. Robin Wright Penn, Bob Hoskins, Cary Elwes, Fionnula Flanagan, and Colin Firth lend their voices as well.
 
Scrooge, as if you didn't know, is the miserly, misanthropic, Victorian-era accountant who is asked by employee Bob Cratchit for a half-day off so that he may be with his family on Christmas, which is pure humbug to greedy curmudgeon Scrooge.
 
On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer the geezer is visited not only by the ghost of his ex-partner but by a triumvirate of familiar-looking apparations as well, who take him time-traveling on a redemptive journey back to the future, as it were.
 
The prodigiously accomplished Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Back to the Future trilogy, Cast Away, Death Becomes Her, Contact) also produced and wrote the adapted screenplay, which is methodically paced and lovingly, confidently presented.
 
As has been Zemeckis' wont throughout his trailblazing directing career, the high-tech wizardry on display that's responsible for the special effects is gracefully integrated; that is, it's admittedly highlighted, but never at the expense of the story or characters.
 
Thus is Victorian London impressively captured and magnificently rendered, never more so than in the opening sequence, during which the camera swoops and soars over the fully realized digital city.
 
This high-tech installment of the ultimate Christmas-spirit story, also available in 3-D and Imax, could use a bit more heart to go along with its visual pizzazz and its menacing ghosts and nightmarish images.
   
In other words, we could do with a touch more "emotion capture" to accompany all that motion-capture.  But the film still gets its holiday job done.
 
So, God bless all 3 stars out of 4 for the dynamically animated A Christmas Carol, as Robert Zemeckis breathes new deck-the-halls life into this holiday chestnut .