Scrooge: Un (mé)chant de Noël

If you're going to make a remake at least try and improve something. The 1970 musical is the favorite version of this story at our house so we're a bit biased. It started out more original by incorporating Dickens childhood for Scrooges but then started semi-copying the musical numbers (rushed tempos and horribly shortened). And a dog??!! Scrooge was much too mean and stingy to have ever entertained having a pet. Hollywood - please please try doing something original. A new score would have been much better to go along with all the other changes that were made. It was like they wanted to tell it a new way but then kept changing their minds and copying bits and pieces of the well done 1970 version. Those who are unfamiliar with the Albert Finney masterpiece will enjoy it I think. But for those of us who treasure that version, this was all a bit confusing.

Yet another film transposition of one of the most beautiful and iconic Christmas stories of all time and I can say by heart that this is the ugliest and least faithful of all, even if the film itself is not bad but when compared to all the others done so far this is the worst done. The main problems of the film are two, one is the dog that has absolutely nothing to do with it and is just annoying for most of the film and the other is the fact that the film is too childish, denaturing the more adult part of the original work in favor of an audience of small children, thus taking away a lot from the original teaching of history to make it more likeable.

Did we need another A Christmas Carol film? No, probably not.

Was this worth it? Just for Luke Evans vocals alone I'd 100% say yes. Some of the songs were spectacular.

The animation was great, with exciting new imaginations of scenes. I think it was a successful modernisation of an over saturated film and will definitely get younger kids enjoying it, but maybe not enough to stand out alone if it wasn't a musical. There wasn't enough emphasis on some of the other characters stories, so you don't build much of an emotional connection with them. Some of the accents were pretty bad, and parts of the original script and wording is lost, which is important to its essence.

Despite that, it's enjoyable, and after all it's a children's film. I will be going back to replay Luke Evan's singing solos on repeat.

There have been over 100 versions of this story on film and TV in the last 100 years or so.

This one, while competently made, adds nothing to the canon.

It is technically well enough done and has some fine glitz and glitter, but the plot is truncated to the point of abandonment; the character development isn't; the songs, with some exceptions are lifeless and listless.

How can I say this: even Tiny Tim comes off as a two-minute afterthought.

It's not that the story can't abide restaging. The best may still be the 1951 Alistair Sim, but the 1992 Muppet version was fresh and winning, and eve last month's Spirited gave us some pizzaz and some energy.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol 2022, while not bad, per se, was as unnecessary a project as I can remember.

What. The frick. Did I. Just. Watch.

This is a supposed remake of the brilliant and beautiful and loveable 1970's version of "A Christmas Carol" with Albert Finney. This completely desecrated said movie and the whole beautiful tale of "A Christmas Carol".

First of all, it is canon that Scrooge is NOT a victim of circumstance. He is an absolute miserable old miser, a crotchety old man and completely unlikeable. This Scrooge was a strange silver fox and completely TOO likeable. Scrooge is an OLD DUDE, NOT A HUNK OF BURNING LOVE. The whole point of Scrooge's character is the hope of redemption/repentance and of hard change. Not the easy "Oh wow yeah I can change" that this movie portrayed. There was no great gradual change, no resolution with Cratchit and Fred (who, for whatever reason has a totally different name??? Wth was up with that????)

Wtf is up with the dog??? There was no point. Absolutely none.

Background work? Totally lazy. Like the animators said, "oh we didn't render that so we'll just go to Doctor Strange's Astral Plane".

Also, the ghosts. Past? Annoying AF. Sweet mother of potatoes my ears are BLEEDING. Why does she repeat everything, and why does she look like a giant pile of nacho cheese? AND WHY DID SHE STEAL THE DOCTORS ICONIC PHRASE?! Uh uh, honey. Absolutely not. Why was Christmas Present so freaking WEIRD???!? And why does he directly quote the Cave of Wonders? Ghost of Future was NOT scary. He looked like a weird scarecrow, and the costume came straight from Party City.

The songs were so cringy, especially the repeated ones from the Albert Finney. Especially "Thank You Very Much" - I feel physically ill. Just use different songs, OR sing them like they were meant to in the original movie. For the love of Christmas, don't modernize it.

AND STOP TALKING DOWN TO THE AUDIENCE. WE GET THE SYMBOLISM. YOU DONT HAVE TO SHOW US EVERY FRICKIN THING AS A PARALLEL IN THE SKY.

Pros: Luke Evans has a very pleasant, beautiful voice.

Cons: everything else. I am Scrooge. Humbug.