a christmas carol jim carrey

a christmas carol jim carrey,

I was invited to preview “A Christmas Carol” in Golden Village cinema on last Monday 9/11, courtesy of Omy.sg and Disney! Thank you so much! :)

Disney are, of course, no strangers to the concept of adapting the wonderfully copyright-free story of A Christmas Carol, having done so twice before with the wholly animated Mickey's Christmas Carol in 1983 and partly-animated Muppet's Christmas Carol in 1992. Switching back to full-animation, albeit with effective motion capture techniques first seen on 'The Polar Express' some years earlier, 'A Christmas Carol' is both the studio's first completely non-anthropomorphic version and their best yet.

Proving once again that he has a versatility that stretches beyond puerile mugging and saying "alright-y then", Jim Carrey manages to fox the viewer brilliantly with a wonderfully, crotchety Scrooge. From his first act -to pay for Marley's undertaking with those pennies intended for his recently deceased's safe passage across the Styx - he comes across as repulsive, warped and irredeemable. Marley enjoys his revenge, however, with a truly terrifying turn from Gary Oldman as he reveals to the miser his final chance of salvation before rejoining the, now terrifyingly visible, phantoms that roam the city streets tormented by a desire to help but an inability to do so.

Carrey is then, somewhat amusingly, at the mercy of himself as he provides the voices and motions of all three spirits. Christmas Past is brilliantly captured in all his child-like luminescence while Christmas Present is suitably kind yet firm, once you get past the fact Carrey cannot quite decide if he's playing a character from Yorkshire, Scotland or just simply Brian Blessed. Only the Ghost of Christmas Future is disappointing with the makers deciding Scrooge should become his plaything, leading to a horrendous and badly-judged chase sequence that sees Scrooge inexplicably miniaturised as he runs from deathly, black horses. Granted the studio are still very keen to show off their new 3D techniques and the pursuit may perk up any jaded audience members, but this time could and should have been given up to a longer Christmas Present sequence. Scrooge is already emotionally drained by this point, to the extent that Christmas Future need only point him where to go, he simply does not need to be roughly whipped through the streets too.