(Huh. A Penny post with no pictures. Maybe she can pull it off.)
Disney's 3D animated "A Christmas Carol."
More magic than the first time I went to Disneyland. After all these years, I can still feel that?
This movie is AHH-mazing. I don't know how to write movie reviews, but let me just say some words and see if you get the picture:
Grotesquely comic (especially the close-ups of people's mouths. Ewww, the teeth in that era! And did that char woman have dirty-behind-the-ears stains?)
Jim Carrey's Victorian dialect as Scrooge
Jim Carrey's Scottish accent as the Ghost of Christmas Present
Jim Carrey's ghosts that I didn't even know were his voice! A lot of them.
Dickens' dialogue--unapologetically.
Serious animation--attention to minute detail and who would ever think of such things to animate?!
Clever
Delightful
Tense
And did I mention the animation? Boggled my little brain not just a little bit.
I'm a Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol fan from way back and for Christmas fare, I still like the old ones better, because they have more real spirit and joy and the message isn't lost in all the digital flights of fancy. I know it's animation, but there was something missing. No soul in the eyes. At once I felt like it was almost real because it was so well done, and at the same time I felt cheated because the eyes belong to puppets. In other words, this movie is not a good way to introduce the real Dickens classic.
Reading the story is the best way to get Dickens, I think. The next best was a few years ago when I heard an actor tell the story as Dickens at This is the Place Candlelight Christmas in a pioneer building heated by a fire on a bitterly cold night. Then the movies with real people you can be moved by come next.
Those are all good for experiencing the hope and joy and recovered humanity of this story.
However, for the candy part of Christmas, this movie makes the grade, in a large, dazzlingly fantastic way.
I might have to see this thing another 40 or so times.
