By Jesse Medina
With the Holiday season comes the slew of Christmas movies that wait ever so eagerly to debut. This year Disney has given us A Christmas Carol.
Almost everyone is familiar with the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol but leave it up to Disney to put a somewhat different spin to it. For starters the entire movie is done in digital 3-D. The characters, though realistic, retained a cartoonish look with over emphasized facial features and overly robust jiggling bellies.
Jim Carrey provided the voice for the movie’s main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, and also voiced the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. With the usual Carrey theatrics the voices all retained their own individuality; you wouldn’t know he did the voices for them all.
The movie began much as others of the same ilk with a wide angled shot of marry old England during the Victorian Era. Scrooge, looking like a walking zombie—skinny, decrepit, and bitter—looks fantastically evil, which would make anyone afraid to ask for that extra coal to heat their working area.
The character of Bob Cratchit, voiced by actor Gary Oldman, looks extremely mouse-like with his tattered old suit and his puffy cheeks. He is obviously intimidated by Scrooge with his greedy, bitter demeanor. He fears to ask for Christmas off but manages to get it off despite Scrooge’s insistence that he is stealing a day’s wages.
After leaving work Scrooge arrives at his dark mansion, which looks as decrepit as Scrooge himself. It is that evening that he encounters the ghost of Jacob Marley his old business partner (also the voice of Gary Oldman). Jacob Marley warns Scrooge that if his life continues to follow its current path that he will suffer for it as Marley now does. Scrooge’s only chance is in the visits of three ghosts, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come.
The first ghost to visit Scrooge is the Ghost of Christmas Past. Disney did a particularly good job in the creation of this ghost. He was ethereal character with an unattached large flame for a head and a candle-like body, melted wax and all. The head would bob without reason as if it was being blown by a breeze. This ghost showed Scrooge his Christmases as a child at a boarding school where he was lonely. Scrooge was then shown as a young man where he met a woman who would later leave him because of his increasing greed and lack of emotion for anything except money.
The next ghost was the Ghost of Christmas Present. He was a giant long haired, bushy bearded spirit who looked almost like a young fit Santa Clause. This spirit shows Scrooge the joy of Christmas day among his peers like his nephew Fred and Bob Crachit. It is here that Scrooge sees the poverty of Crachit’s family and the illness of Tiny Tim. Scrooge begins to feel sympathy for Tiny Tim.
The final spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shows Scrooge the final consequences of his actions. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is represented as a large shadow in the silhouette of the grim reaper. When he reaches out to point Scrooge in any direction his hand is a black skeletal hand. Scrooge is shown his death and begs forgiveness after finally realizing his cold heartedness. He begs the spirit for a second chance.
Scrooge awakens in his bed to find that it is Christmas day. He changes completely, being generous and helpful to everyone, especially the Crachit family and Tiny Tim.
The movie was entertaining and is a good holiday movie for the family. It reinforces the old Christmas feeling of merriment and helping your fellow man.
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