A Christmas Carol

Every year it seems someone makes another "Christmas Carol" movie. BE it for television or theatrical. There has been adaptions where the story is changed to "Modern Times" Some with a gender switch" and musical versions as well. I have not however seen this turned into a ballet or an "ON ICE" edition however I am sure one is in the works!

We all know the story but this edition stays as close as they can to the book. This is the darkest, most ghostly version of this story ever made. It stays true to the original feel of the Dickens story, while turning up the creepiness. A range of well known Irish and English actors makes up the cast. On the anniversary of his business partner's death, Ebenezer Scrooge finds unwelcome company in the form of three spirits from Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come.

The problem with this film is that the lighting is bad. The direction is terrible. It also spoken in "Elizabethan" and that is a huge distraction.

As for the costumes there not "memorable". The acting was fine but nobody gives a stand out performance.

If you are a parent and you want to introduce your children to the story then almost any other version is a better choice. Like another reviewer posted "I prefer the version from MGM" from 1938.

Where do I begin? First, nobody like a good Christmas Carol better than I do. I've read the book, Alister Sim, Seymor Hicks, Reginald Owen have good movie versions. Fredrick March.. eh.. Geo. C. Scott's was pretty good. Did not care for the musical, or the 're-imagining' versions. I like my Carol English and Dickensian. The Muppets was pretty good, too. I even like the motion capture Jim Carry version. But, my personal favorite is Captain Picard's Christmas Carol. Fabulous! This one? It has several problems. It has a real feel of a film made in the 1970s. Effects are awful, the music is WAY to loud, sometime drowning out the acting. Which is not difficult, because most of it is performed without any feeling at all. It's difficult to even pay attention. Any scene that might require and actual crowd is shot as rolling clouds and narration from the book. BBC and FX is doing a miniseries with Andy Serkis that looks really interesting. Do yourself a favor. Watch this if you must see every version out there, otherwise, skip it and get a copy of Patrick Stewert's Christmas Carol.

Out of all the screen adaptations I have seen of "A Christmas Carol" this is the most boring adaption

Now here is the break down of the film from Amazon.

This is the darkest, most ghostly version of this story ever made. It stays true to the original feel of the Dickens story, while turning up the creepiness. A range of well known Irish and English actors makes up the cast. On the anniversary of his business partner's death, Ebenezer Scrooge finds unwelcome company in the form of three spirits from Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come.

I was hoping that this films "Darker Elements" would make this version stand out more but it doesn't. The sets are brightly let and thus taking away anything that might be scary.

It doesn't help that they used "Old English" type of writing in this. This makes the film sounds smug and keeps the audience at an emotional distance!

I have no idea how many adaptations have been made from this Charles Dickens tale but it is time to give it a rest.

I don't even know where to begin. The whole production is very amateurish, and though most lines are directly from Dickens, they are edited quite heavily so that many passages are almost unrecognizable. I'm not sure if it was a question of budget, or talent, but this came off quite badly. It was only $2 online, so I streamed it. And now I want my $2 back.

This adaptation tries so hard to me avant garde and full of "atmosphere" that misses out on effectively actually telling the story. It quotes much of the original novella, even including the narration (much rewritten), but and with so many cut-aways to fast moving storm clouds (much overused in overlays as well) and echoed voices in Scrooge's visions, that it is obvious that the director is trying to remake this 150 year old story with the atmosphere of a modern ghost/horror story. He does not pull it off effectively.

Too much emphasis on atmosphere, not enough on the story. While the acting is respectable, the direction and cinematography are awful...a great story poorly retold.