By Susan Granger - Disney’s vivid, new interpretation of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale of an old miser’s redemption has become a 3-D fantasy-adventure, envisioned by one of Hollywood’s most innovative directors, Robert Zemeckis (“Back to the Future” trilogy, “Forrest Gump,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Polar Express,” “Beowulf”), with versatile Jim Carrey playing grinchy Ebenezer Scrooge at four different stages of his life, plus all three Christmas ghosts.
In London, 1843, Scrooge is enduring the onset of yet another holiday season. Far from joyous, he leads a miserable, lonely, isolated life, hoarding his money, abusing its power, rebuking his faithful clerk, Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman), and snapping at his ever-optimistic nephew, Fred (Colin Firth). Then, on the seventh anniversary of his death, Scrooge’s former business partner, Joseph Marley, bound in chains, dispatches three transformative ghosts to Scrooge’s bedchamber, hoping to achieve a reprieve for his soul. That initiates a wild, time-traveling thrill-ride as Scrooge is forced to confront his past, present and future.
Zemeckis and his team achieve amazingly detailed, articulated animation, utilizing performance-capture technology. This complex special effects technique records an actor’s expressions and movements, translating them into a digital mode. Each actor wears a heavy spandex suit and helmet covered in dots that are read and interpreted by the camera, which also records a myriad of different facial expressions. Then key-frame artists embellish the virtual essence of the actor’s performance. After that, additional artists utilize inventive production design and the skill to create a truly collaborative work of animation that re-imagines the environment of Victorian London, soaring through the city streets and flying up above the rooftops, significantly amplifying the dramatic narrative. Obviously, it’s that total freedom of movement that most intrigues Zemeckis.
First published on December 19, 1843, this timeless Dickens novella has featured a wide variety of Scrooges, including Albert Finney, George C. Scott, Bill Murray, Alistair Sim, Rowan Atkinson, Patrick Stewart and Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” is an intricate, ingenious – often scary 8, soaring into the holiday season.
© 2009 Susan Granger - “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” (Disney)
