Christmas Carol: The Movie

• Directed by Jimmy Murakami
• September 15, 2001 (Toronto International Film Festival) / December 7, 2001 (UK)
• Based on Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella A Christmas Carol

Voice Cast

• Ebenezer Scrooge-Simon Callow
• Belle-Kate Winslet
• Jacob Marley-Nicolas Cage
• Ghost of Christmas Past-Jane Horrocks
• Ghost of Christmas Present-Michael Gambon
• Bob Cratchit-Rhys Ifans
• Emily Cratchit-Juliet Stevenson
• Joe-Robert Llewellyn
• Fred-Iain Jones
• Fan-Beth Winslet
• Albert Fezziwig-Colin McFarlane
• Dr. Lambert-Arthur Cox
• Mr. Leach, Undertaker-Keith Wickham
• Choir Master-Joss Sanglier
• Mice Voice No. 1-Sarah Annison
• Mice Voice No. 2-Rosalie MacCraig

Having spent years making excuses for his terrible nature, Ebenezer Scrooge learns to genuinely care and gets a second chance at love with the help of Christmas Ghosts.

Christmas Carol: The Movie, despite all appearances, is probably one of the least direct adaptions of the classic Dickens story I have ever encountered. I know there are plenty of variations on the concept out there such as Scrooged or A Diva’s Christmas Carol, but by all indications this looks like it should be an actual adaption of the story and really is not. Instead it comes off like a variation on the story with those behind it wanting to put on film their story and not some adaption of the Dicken’s classic.

There are numerous additions/changes to the story in this film such as a mouse character which takes up an unusual amount of focus. It’s not an anthropomorphic mouse that sings or dances or narrates but rather a stray bit of vermin that has been adopted as a pet by children at a hospital before making its way to various scenes of the movie. Why? Not sure. I’m uncertain if it’s meant to be a connecting thread of some type or what. It only amounted to padding that stopped the story. 

Perhaps this additional element was an outgrowth of what appears to be an attempt by the people behind Christmas Carol: The Movie to connect all things both good and bad happening in the lives of the assorted characters to Ebeneezer Scrooge and his general greed. Certainly his greed was never without its victims in any of its presentations but here it connects to just about everything in this movie. I’m left with the impression that this movie was going for a different message than the source material. It seems to be hinting that corporate greed will ruin everything rather than the individual should be more kind to others and not bitter about the past.

There’s a great deal of time given to a new character referred to as ‘Joe’ who is working for Ebeneezer Scrooge and tossing people in debtors prison in order for Ebeneezer to get rich or richer depending on how you look at it. Really though he is just as unnecessary as the mouse. We know Ebeneezer is greedy. We know he’ll foreclose on people. That’s been demonstrated before in dialogue in material that is far more faithful to the source than in the actions we get to see here. 

Then there are the changes with Belle and Ebenezer. Belle in a fortuitous coinky dink is a nurse at the hospital that lost its doctor because of Scrooge. Belle has never married and has never had children and has instead selflessly devoted her life to caring for sick kids much to the dismay of the much younger (as portrayed here) Scrooge. And by the end the two reconnect in love.

With only 71 minutes (I watched the version inexplicably without the live action portions I have only read about) the extras and alterations crowd out the important portion of the story which are Scrooge’s ghostly encounters. Since they must be portrayed the creative minds sprint through those so fast Usain Bolt would have trouble keeping up. And that makes Scrooge’s transformation at the end rather unimpactful. The elements that caused it to occur were flung at you.

The animation is lackluster. I don’t need the finest animation, but I need something that looks adequate, and this just looks cheap. Companies from Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Spain, and South Korea all contributed to this and it all blends seamlessly. I give them credit there but it was just bad looking and rather bland. The voice talent here is pretty good and do a good job with what they have. The issue is they have very little worthwhile to work with. Pair that with the animation and badly executed story and something that should elevate ultimately does nothing.

Christmas Carol: The Movie is one version of the story you can certainly skip. With cheap animation and excessive additions to the story it just falls flat and just doesn’t work. I’m sure kids will like it but adults most likely will not.