A Christmas Carol [2009] — 8

This is my all time favorite Christmas story. It never grows old in any form. I love the story so much that I must watch about 3-4 different versions of the story every Christmas. With that biased opinion I continue.

Now I was honestly not expecting that much out of an animated version of this story, but boy was I wrong, it actually added quite a bit to the effect of the film. To begin with it allowed for some pretty intense effects such as The Ghost of Christmas future was nothing more than a shadow most of the time, only a few times does it actually manifest in a physical form. The other thing that makes it easy is the transition from one to another scene where effects are needed. Another note is with the Present ghost, the room he was in flew around and you could see through the floor. All interesting effects and those are just but a few. It was well worth watching for the effects alone.

Now what initially turned me off was the fact that Jim Carrey did the voice over for Scrooge. But after I looked on IMDB, he actually did most of the voices for the film. Kind of like Tom Hanks with The Polar Express. He did most of the voices for the entire movie. I didn’t know that like I did while watching this film though, so props to Jim Carrey for being able to confuse me that much. There were of course other Voice actors, but Jim Carrey still did most of the work for it.

The other thing that really got to me was the scene when Tiny Tim passed. I actually cried so hard it wasn’t even funny. I think this was the first time in my life that an animated movie made me cry that hard. It was so touching and hurtful to watch all at the same time. I have never seen Tiny Tim’s death ever portrayed as well as it was in this film. And again this was an animated film! It still catches me off guard.

All in all this was one of the better versions of A Christmas Carol I have ever seen. If you like the story then this film will keep you interested from start to end. I loved it.

Base Score = 8
+1 for Jim Carrey
+1 for excellent animation
+1 for making me cry
-1 for being a little bit on the scary side
-1 for not showing Scrooge in more happy scenes. There were only a few, and they could have easily put in more.
-1 for the music not being that great
=8/10