Every Christmas Eve following evening church service, my family observes a few long-standing traditions. We bake a few last-minute things to take to my grandmother’s the following evening, we stay up all night wrapping gifts (as a result of collective procrastination) and we watch either The Muppet Christmas Carol or The Santa Clause. These movies, while somewhat juvenile, instilled in me an early appreciation for Christmas, and as such, will always be special.
The Muppet Christmas Carol in particular has always been quite special. After watching it as a child I was given an incentive to read the famous novella and watch other film versions of it. All the same, the movie starring Michael Caine and the Muppets continues to impress me as an adult. While it may not be rigorously true to the original work, the tale narrated by Gonzo the Great serves as a light and broad overview for young audiences and conveys Dickens’ message in a way that is understandable for children yet abstract enough to get them thinking. The overtly dark aspects of the story are presented with eerie Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future and explicit mentions of death. What is most important to note, however, is that at the end of the film Gonzo advises all audience members to “read the book”.
Disney presents its third take on the classic tale (A Christmas Carol, released in 2009), written and directed by Robert Zemeckis (of Back to the Future, Contact and Polar Express fame). The movie was produced using performance capture, the same technique Zemeckis used in his films Beowulf, Monster House and The Polar Express. While it features a highly regarded cast (Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman and Bob Hoskins to name a few) and was meticulously created in both a visual sense and in being true to the original work, the movie produces no hopeful feelings that the book and other adaptations do and isinappropriate for young audiences.
The movie is far more a horror story than it is a hopeful Christmas story. The three spirits are equally bone-chilling to look at (even the ghost of Christmas present at various points) and the appearance of Jacob Marley quite literally kept me up the night that I watched the movie. Such emphasis on creating a visually appealing film as well as keeping it close to the original work detracts it from the importance of the overall message. Carrey disappoints with an excruciatingly fake accent and a pretty static portrayal of Scrooge; even on Christmas day, Scrooge’s merry transformation seems insincere.
Unless you are familiar with the story, the dialogue becomes increasingly lost on you as a result of awkward pacing; thick, incomprehensible accents and long, sweeping scenes of Scrooge being chased or dragged around London. The soundtrack features triumphant renditions of Christmas hymns that attempt to add to the visual majesty of the film but along with the other faults of the movie, the music seems misplaced.
Not only is this movie unappealing for an adult audience, but it is a complete miss for its target audience. It is confusing and frightening and is somehow devoid of any comic relief considering the cast includes Carrey, Hoskins and Cary Elwes and is trying to appeal to a young audience. Perhaps this disappointing rendition of the classic story is relevant to the modern world and how our society has evolved over the past decade.
Perhaps it is just my generation and the ones preceding that would be frightened by the images of this movie; perhaps children these days are simply that desensitized. If I were a parent I would be offended by the vulgar use of the term “ass” in a Disney movie, but I suppose that also reflects the desensitization noted above. One final moment that struck me was when Scrooge uttered, “Happy Holidays” on Christmas morning. The placement of this is absolutely beyond me and speaks volumes on how we have become fanatic in the placement of political correctness.
Stick with the Muppets.
by SARAH SIDDIQUI for urbanemagazine.org
