Here we are with my fourth film explicitly based on 'A Christmas Carol' and the second direct adaptation. I can say quite easily that this was the worst of the lot. That is not to say that is terrible, but is also not good. The whole film just feels off, mostly from the visuals which are deeply embedded within the uncanny valley. It also just seems like it is completely unneeded, It is pretty much a straight up adaptation and brings very little new to the story. Of course it is as story we all know and it is a synopsis I have written at least once already, but I need to keep my word count up. The story follows Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey), a bitter old man with a hatred of Christmas, who on Christmas eve is visited by the ghost of his old colleague Jacob Marley (Gary Oldman). Marley warns Scrooge that he is damned if he does not change his ways, and that he will be visited by three spirits in order to help him turn his life around. He is subsequently visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future who show him visions of his past, present and future life (obviously) in order to teach Scrooge the meaning of Christmas.
There are some good aspects of this film. Some of the visuals are really cool, but unfortunately are few and far between. The most notable moment of this is with the Ghost of Christmas Future. When it is first introduced it is seens as Scrooge's shadow. This is a really cool way of showing the character and leads to some pretty eerie visuals. Unfortunately this soon turns into a really out of place action scene which completely kills the mood. Also, despite some cool visuals, the film is so hard to watch because of how all the human characters look. The uncanny valley is so strong in the film. The characters look close enough to real life, but not quite real enough to not be super creepy. They all look dead behind the eyes. It honestly looks worse than some video game cutscenes, especially nowadays. It may have looked better when it first came out, but it has aged pretty horribly. It also means that some of the more cartoonish moments don't work. There a couple of these moments and the 'realistic' character models mean that you never got the full effect of what they are going for. Also they just don't fit the mood. It is such a close adaptation of the original story that throwing in cartoon style comedy moments was never going to work.
The cast for this film is a really strong one. This does not mean that I particularly liked the performances. Gary Oldman is solid in his three roles as Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and Marley. Despite playing three characters he isn't actually in the film all that much, but when he is he oes a good job, mostly because he is Gary Oldman. Colin Firth is in the film even less and he plays Colin Firth. No, sorry, he plays Scrooge's nephew, Fred. But, come on, he is playing Colin Firth. Luckily I like Colin Firth so I don't have a problem with this. No one else really has enough of a speaking role to give a full review of, but most of the actors do a fine job. And then we come to Jim Carrey who plays Scrooge throughout all his age groups and all three of the ghosts. I am not a fan of his performance. Its hard for me to say it is a bad performance because its not. I just don't like his version of Scrooge. My favourite Scrooges are menacing but not silly. Carrey's version is, well, as you'd expect. Its full of silly voices and over the top facial expressions and actions. This doesn't match the mood that well, and his voice especially feels off when you hear it come out of the younger version of Scrooge. I really like Jim Carrey as an actor, but I do not like him in this role. But, again, I don't think any of the actors are helped by the character models looking so lifeless. they're basically trying to give personality to empty husks.
I was genuinely really disappointed by this film. The cast is strong but the films desire to be this technical marvel means that the cast are struggling against horrifying character models. I hate to harp on on the fact, but it needs to be repeated because I was so distracted by the faces of the characters throughout the film that I could never fully buy into it. Its such a shame because some of the visuals are great and, of course, the story is a classic one and endlessly retellable.Still, I find it hard to just flat out not recommend it, because if you can past the creepy nature of the film there is something there. But I would say there are so many different and better versions of this story out there that you can leave this one towards the bottom of the pile.