This will be the third musical version of A Christmas Carol I’ve watched for these reviews, and this one isn’t hiding the fact. A Christmas Carl, the Musical (2004) is very straight up in telling you what you’re in store for and it doesn’t disappoint in that regard with a song being sung at every opportunity. Unfortunately, out of the ones I have watched it is the one I enjoyed the least.
Maybe I have just seen far too many versions of this film by now, but this one was just not doing anything for me. It’s general telling of the story is fine. The sets are decent, and the wardrobe is all accurate to the time and give you a sense of the time period. They do have the sense of a TV movie about them (and that is because it is) but they achieve the intended purpose. But the main issue of the film is that musical side of it is just a bit naff. I didn’t think any of the songs were terrible, but equally I couldn’t tell you how any of them go now that I am trying to remember. And of course, when speaking about a film of A Christmas Carol you have to talk about Scrooge. In this film he is played by Kelsey Grammar, and he really enjoys chewing up the scenery in the way that he does. It’s a fun performance, and it fits the tone of the film with it being a musical but in terms of a performance of Scrooge it definitely isn’t up with my favourites. It’s a bit too silly and doesn’t capture the emotion of many of the other renditions of the character. I think the biggest issue I have with it is that it feels very much like a performance than a character, which is fine in a film like this but is also a bit too silly at points.
Overall, this film doesn’t really hit any of what you want it to for either a version of A Christmas Carol or am musical. It isn’t terrible in any sense, but it is also not anything better than fine. There are better musical versions of this story, and much, much better versions of the story generally which worth your time much more.
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