A 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.

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.

Dickens titled his novella A Christmas Carol in prose Being a Ghost Story of Christmas and that is exactly what this atmospheric adaptation delivers. Sure its cinematography is a tad dark, so was London in 1843. Yes the dialog is Shakespearian. At least the filmmakers tried something new. The acting is excellent throughout and the script is probably the most faithful to the original manuscript of any incarnation heretofore produced. In time this little gem will be re-appraised. And God bless us everyone for being opened minded enough to give it a chance.

I've seen many versions of this story and was encouraged by the description of this being one of the darker treatments. But it was like they weren't really trying. Important lines were skipped, dialog was only one-sided, many details were missing, such as Marley's ghost talking about the chains he wore, but you couldn't see any. Or bed curtains being confused with window curtains. Way too many parts were clips shown earlier in the movie to fill the space. So much more could have been made by the creepy parts. The small cast didn't help either. No parties, no rooms of people, Fezziwig's and Fred's had just 3 people. The acting was wooden and everyone's eyes were unemotional, with the one exception of Bob Cratchit. Scrooge wasn't transformed except he stopped acting so angry. So disappointing.

The music was good, though, so that was appreciated.

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.