A Christmas Carol

This adaption of A Christmas Carol is animated with some really nice artwork. Scrooge has a dog in this one which is very nice and adds some humour. He's voiced by Tim Curry, an actor who appeared in many fantasy and horror films. An ideal fun film for children, especially those kids of the 90's like me who grew up watching these styles of cartoon graphics. It's colourful and with awesome details. I love this particular film as it's cheerful and full of magic that captures what the book is all about. An uplifting merry story and has a few pleasant musical tunes, amusing scenes and tons of entertainment.

The first temptation is to define it as modest animation. And you are just wrong. Because it is a version for kids and this fact makes it just inspired adaptation, from the dog to the beautiful ghosts and the dialogues.

It has the virtue of impressive cast and it is not only about names but about the work of actors , Tim Curry and Woopy Goldberg being the most easy good examples.

A charming animation- the fair definition of it, nostalgia source for children of 1990 decade and smart crafted adaptation .

Indeed, nothing new , in essence but good kick for discover , for young readers, Robinson Crusoe or the facts of king Arthur.

So, little more than pleasant. And not exactly so...modest.

Sweet, entertaining, and underrated are the three words I would use to describe this Christmas Carol. The story itself is so famous that I won't bother with summarizing it and I highly recommend that the eight or so people who don't know it watch this film (if you can't find a copy, it's on YouTube). While there have been animated versions before and musical versions before, this is the only version I know of that is an animated musical (if you know of any other such versions, let me know), and I think it does both of these aspects very well, especially since I had an extremely hard time getting Santa's Sooty Suit out of my brain. Likewise with the animation, which is crisp and bright without being too bright. This movie sticks pretty close to the original and the few changes it does make actually work, such as Scrooge having an equally grouchy dog and Tiny Tim accompanying his father to work. The ghosts are very good as well, especially the ghost of Christmas Future, who reminds me somewhat of the Grim Reaper. The duet between a young Scrooge and Belle is very touching and bittersweet.

This is not the best Christmas Carol I've seen, The Alastair Sim, George C.Scott and Muppet versions are versions I prefer. But this 1997 animated film is much better than the 2001 film which was also animated and had Simon Callow and Kate Winslet, that would have been decent had it not been so dull.

This Christmas Carol is not perfect. There are parts of the film that drag, especially the first 15 minutes or so. Also while I have seen much worse animation as some of the colours and backgrounds are better than expected, there are some shortcuts with the occasionally awkward character design and the frames are quite simplistic.

Flaws aside, this film I think is charming, worthwhile and underrated. The incidental music is absolutely beautiful, while I quite liked the songs actually particularly Santa's Sooty Suit and the very touching duet between Belle and young Ebeneezer. This version is not the most faithful, there are some changes, specifically the character Debit who I was in two minds of whether he was really that necessary to the story and the fact the ghost of Christmas Present ages throughout.

There are some changes though that I think worked, particularly the bit where Robinson Crusoe appears as a spirit and the part where Tiny Tim is reading the same book and Scrooge is reading along which really quite touched me. Even with the changes though, the spirit of the classic story is there. The crucial scenes are there, you do empathise with Scrooge throughout, the ending is marvellous being very heartwarming and as well as some added dialogue(the Mr Grumpy Face line is very funny) some of the film's writing is lifted from the text of the book as you can see in the scene in the beginning with Fred and the ending at Bob Cratchit's house.

The voice cast is top notch. Edward Asner is a good Jacob Marley, Michael York is very spirited and Jodi Benson is also touching. Support wise, the best for me was Whoopi Golberg who embodies her character very well and seems to be having a great deal of fun. Best of all is Tim Curry in the title role, right from the voice to the delivery of the lines, he is just wonderful.

Overall, while it is not the best or most perfect version there is, I enjoyed it a lot. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I'll admit when I first started watching this movie (actually it came on while I had the tv on for background noise) but around half way through I actually stopped working and started watching it and taped the last quarter. The ending is marvelous. a wonderful movie, except for the first 20- 25 mins a lot of the songs were catchy (still have "Santa's sooty suit" stuck in my head) overall a good movie, see it for yourself