The snowy cobblestone street is packed with vendors, stalls, patrons, and carriages. Shawl-wrapped women brandish roasted chestnuts in bundles of newspaper, crying, “A shilling a piece.” Men in black silk top-hats push their way through the crowds, eager to return to their business while children scamper from one end of the road to another, laughing and shrieking in play. As the road widens and the market fades to the distance, the sound of the children’s boots smacking on cobblestone slows, then halts. A lone, hunched, and gnarled figure hobbles across the street, causing the children to retreat as quickly and quietly as they can. Ebenezer Scrooge approaches.
Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” is all about the atmospheric sights and sounds of Charles Dickens’ classic novella. Director Robert Zemeckis (famous for “Monster House,” “The Polar Express,” and “Cast Away”) takes exhilarating advantage of the computer animation and 3-D media, as moviegoers soar and zip through Victorian London, quaint English villages, and jaunty Christmas celebrations.
When I first heard about the movie I was underwhelmed. We already have enough versions of the story; why resurrect it yet again just to dress it in the flashy trappings of 3-D? I may have been right were the movie in the hands of a less-talented director. “A Christmas Carol” is a story so well known that it has lost much of its spark. Zemeckis reignites it.
Rather than employing spectacle just to dazzle, Zemeckis uses stunning graphics to draw viewers into the Victorian era. However, images alone do not make the film, rather, the movie’s writing completes the process of reviving Dickensian London.
Not all adaptations bother to keep in as much of the original language as this one does, and the film benefits from it.
“There’s more of gravy than of grave about you,” Scrooge spits at Jacob Marley’s ghost, dismissing the specter as the product of a richly-fed belly. In turn the minds of children watching are enriched by the prominent presence of Dickens’s dialogue.
Only two things hinder “A Christmas Carol” from being the perfect family holiday film. First: its content. Because the movie adapts the book so vividly, many scenes are too frightening for younger children. Older kids who enjoy a thrill will especially love the scenes with Marley’s eerie and wailing ghost, and the creative and chilling transition between the Ghost of Christmas Present to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
Second: its release. Opening in theaters at the beginning of November, “A Christmas Carol” tries to work its holiday magic nearly two months too early for the season. It’s hard to get into the Christmas spirit in the weeks sandwiched between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Disney does the film a disservice by dumping it in theaters early, likely wanting to clear the way for the December release of “The Princess and the Frog.” Someone in the company’s scheduling department should have had more foresight.
My advice: buy or rent the movie on DVD and watch it with your family at Christmas once your children are old enough. This adaptation is more than just spectacle, and it should survive the transition from big screen 3-D to home viewing.
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