I hate to go all bah humbug about any version of A Christmas Carol, but I'm afraid I didn't find much to enjoy about the new animated film on Netflix. It gave me the impression that someone had forced several cases of Red Bull down the throats of a bunch of animators, locked them in a room, and told them to go to town. The film is frenetic in the extreme. Fireballs streak through the air, surfaces ice over and play videos like a Christmasy Victorian MTV, people and objects float through the air, and honestly, the whole thing is exhausting.
Also, Scrooge has a dog. No, I don't get it either. She's a sweet dog, and a good foil for him, but why Scrooge would have a dog -- or why Marley, from whom he inherited her, would have had a dog -- is a question that's never addressed adequately, and so it just ends up adding to the general air of "What the heck?"
Award-winning composer Leslie Bricusse made significant contributions to the film before he passed away in October of last year. In addition to repurposing songs from his own earlier version, Scrooge (1970), he wrote new songs, in addition to writing the screenplay. His involvement makes me even sadder about my lack of enthusiasm. But most of the re-arranged songs, in this hectic atmosphere, fail to bring with them their old charm, and the new ones don't stand out at all. And there's nothing in the script -- no especially interesting new twists or backstory or flourishes -- to justify this adaptation. As far as the basic story goes, it doesn't really stray all that far from the original (aside from a few inexplicable departures, like the dog), but the sheer busyness of the film makes it look as if it didn't trust its own source material and was relying on distractions.
If there's a plus to this film at all, it's the fine vocal work of the cast, particularly Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, and the other leads. But they're so overly talkative, especially Colman as the Ghost of Christmas Past, that even that gets wearying. This was one version of the Carol that I probably won't be watching again.
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