| Title | Christmas Carol Movies, Stave VII: A Christmas Carol (2009) |
| Author | Chris Hornbostel |
| Posted in | Movie reviews |
| When | December 24, 2019 |
There were at least three major animated versions of Christmas Carol made during the sixties and seventies, from the Mister Magoo adaptation to the half-hour production that won an Emmy for animation..
Robert Zemeckis’ awful uncanny valley CGI phase (Beowulf, Polar Express, this).
You’d be hard pressed to find a once great director fall further than he.
I wonder if you decided to review 7 Christmas Carol movies just to trash the animated Jim Carey version.
Yes, that is why I wrote about 10,000 words over the course of a week.
So I could write this to trash the animated version:
There are stretches of the animated 2009 Christmas Carol that are wondrous. With the beautiful animation, we’re shown a visual feast of a hyper-realized 1840s London that dazzles the eyes and imagination. And at its strongest, the movie recognizes the strength and timeless message of the original source material, and a stellar cast does Dickens’ own dialogue great justice. There is within this film large swathes of a very good and possibly even great movie.
You monster.
Thanks for these reviews, CH! I enjoyed them, every one. Even shared them with my mom who recently rediscovered the George C. Scott version.
One thing I will say: originally before I’d reviewed any of the movies when I started this, I sort of expected to be defending the 2009 Zemeckis vesion. Because I remembered liking it a lot the one time I’d seen it.
I think it was after having watched it and being able to compare it, that the incohesive tonal lapses and abrupt changes of direction were too noticeable to not detract from the experience.
So if I’m only going to watch one of these, which one? I’m sorry I didn’t follow along as closely as I had wanted to, the holidays were crazy for me.
Oh, I apologize if my words came across as glib. I enjoyed the series, but I detected some serious frustration being vented at that version. I just detected a bit more passion in your writing about the last version than the rest, nothing else intended.
Perhaps you were a bit more frustrated with this version because it had good parts, but squandered them on non-sequitur and tonal shifts?
I you’ve nailed it there, actually. :) It’s frustrating because it just struck me as an opportunity lost.
Yeah, I absolutely love the idea of what this version could’ve been…and for large stretches of the movie, it IS that idea. But then it collides badly with these bits where you can just feel a Disney executive reminding Zemeckis to think about the opening weekend box office, so maybe let’s make the animation a cartoon in every sense of the word.
