A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins. Opens Fri, Nov 6.
**

Disney has decided it was time to dust off an old chestnut, A Christmas Carol, with all the bells and whistles available to them in the 21st century: digital animation, in 3D. It’s a long way from the Mickey Mouse version. The effects are stunning. Too bad the effects are all it’s got going for it. At least you could invest emotionally in Scrooge McDuck.

Jim Carrey voices that old bat Ebenezer Scrooge — an excellent casting choice physically, were this a live action film, but weird since all they needed was his voice. And if I were looking for a bloke to voice a miser from Victorian-era London, his wouldn’t be the first door I’d be knocking on. But he does more than his share of work here: he also does duty as all the Christmas ghosts, as well as Scrooge at all other ages, including as a little boy. I guess funny voices is what they called for, after all. And here’s a funny visual for you all: Gary Oldman plays Cratchit, Marley, and Tiny Tim. Wrap your head around that!

Where Mickey put his little paws, inside jokes and all, into the old animated Disney version, this Carol plays things by-the-book — director Robert Zemeckis literally opens a book and turns the pages in a cliché once-upon-a-time manner. Good on him for trying, but I couldn’t help noticing that all the kids in the audience tuned out during the literary bits, but squealed wildly watching the videogame-style chases and silly Jim Carrey bits. You want a classic? Spend the night with George C. Scott or Patrick Stewart for a bit of an update.

This movie also employs the same technology as The Polar Express and Beowulf, both also directed by Zemeckis. Apparently, they used motion-capture technology to create the characters, which means that Jim Carrey’s original flesh-and-blood movements are there somewhere in the motions of the digital Scrooge. You wouldn’t know it. Scrooge does superficially resemble Carrey, albeit somewhat cartoonified. But I’d say we’re still deep in the uncanny valley on this one: there’s something about the movement of these “people” that is creepy rather than charming.

Kudos to modern technology on creating amazing surfaces, though: we can see the tiny hairs coming out of Scrooge’s pores, and the threadbare texture of his poorly tailored overcoat. Pimples erupt from various skins! Fabrics drape gratuitously in unnecessarily long dance sequences! But the bodies seem hollow; again, that unsettling feeling returns. Watch as Scrooge surprises his nephew Fred (Colin Firth) at dinner: his entire party freezes, and then reacts in surprise. It’s like watching mannequins burst into horrifying life.

Other than that, it’s a pretty humdrum Carol: Scrooge gets scared straight by three ghosts, he is moved to pity the working class by visions of Tiny Tim, and learns to let loose dancing a merry jig in his nightshirt. The rest is filler, including that long dance sequence, a vision of other unhappy ghosts begging for mercy, and a chase scene with the Ghost of Christmases to Come. (Apparently, in Christmases to come, London is populated by zombies.)

It’s silly and pedantic at the same time. But oh, how gloriously the snowflakes fall in 3D — you can almost catch them on your tongue!