Un chant de Noël

Darcel, Pam etc are - or were - the Solid Gold Dancers ("Solid Gold" was an American pop music show in the 1980s); in the movie "Scrooged" six of them (guess which two were absent) made a cameo appearance as part of the cast of Bill Murray's TV version of the classic Charles Dickens story... and there's the biggest problem with "Christmas Carol: The Movie" right there. Not the presence of leggy, gorgeous American girls in skimpy attire - such a thing could only have benefitted this movie - but the stunningly definitive and frankly ignorant title; so all the other versions of the novel (and there have been quite a few down the years, featuring casts from Alastair Sim through Henry Winkler [in the TV movie "An American Christmas Carol"] to Michael Caine in "The Muppet Christmas Carol" - not to mention the musical "Scrooge," at least two animated versions, and countless episodes of TV shows borrowing the whole story, like "WKRP In Cincinnati" and "The Odd Couple" to name but two) don't count then?

For a movie to live up to such a title, it would have to be the best version ever, and this isn't. It isn't helped by having live-action bookends of the great man (played here by Simon Callow, also the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge) performing a dramatic reading of his book in Boston. Or by having a pair of mice throughout the movie as the closest things to soulmates the man has (cute animals should be left to Disney and Disney alone). Or by animation that's depressingly crude for the most part (it all looks like a poor 1970s TV show, with the exception of the journeys the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present take our "hero" on, where the movie really does come to life for a bit). Or by Piet Kroon and Robert "Kryten" Llewellyn's script, or Julian Nott's score (pains me to say it, but the songs from Kate Winslet and Charlotte Church are the highpoints).

And as for Nicolas Cage as Jacob Marley... not since the late lamented Lorenzo Music did Peter Venkman on "The Real Ghostbusters" has there been such a shockingly bad case of cartoon miscasting. And some people wonder why so many of us love Pixar.

There is nothing wrong with changing a story so long as you admit to it. So unlike many children's films where a classic is ruined and the child grows up in ignorance and never knows the difference, this film has the charming idea of having live action Charles Dickens go to America and tell the story to an audience explaining it isn't quite the same as how he wrote it in the book, thus growing curiosity and encouraging children to read the true classics of this world. The only real fault with this film is its ghastly title (and possible when the child of ignorance disintegrates, being too scary for children). I admit as a film student I had very low expectations of ANOTHER adaption of A Christmas Carol but was for once very pleasantly surprised and refreshingly, no one bursts into song and no animals talk in this film. The acting is very good and the voice talents obviously cared about this job. How Scrooge acts after the ghost of Christmas Future and how he makes the Christmas miracles are more realistic than I've seen in any adaption for a long time. Things don't happen with a snap of the fingers and this children's film truly does give hope to the most desperate of souls.

Out of all the adaptations of this classic Christmas story by Charles Dickens, this is probably a really good one in my opinion! the story is really good though compared to the original novel; but of course in the novel Ebenezer Scrooge encounters Jacob Marley's ghost in his bedroom, but in this version it's in his office. plus the animation looks really decent and okay in my book though especially the backgrounds that look like something you see in a Christmas card or from Dicken's original illustrations to the novel that's based on the original novel, plus Simon Callow does a really good job voicing Scrooge and playing Charles Dickens in the live action segments as well as Nicolas Cage as Jacob Marley and kudos to Kate Winslet from Titanic (1997) voicing Scrooge's fiancé Belle. yet this movie has some dark moments along with some sad moments and I wouldn't call this a boring adaption, if your a fan to any adaptation to a Christmas Carol along with the Muppets version, check this one out if you have kids in your family!

In this version of A Christmas Carol, Simon Callow plays Charles Dickens. He attends a reading of his classic story, and as he reads aloud to his audience, the film turns to cartoon. Simon lends his voice to Ebenezer Scrooge, and he's joined by Nicolas Cage as Marley, Rhys Ifans as Bob Cratchit, Michael Gambon as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Jane Horrocks as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Juliet Stevenson as Mrs. Cratchit, and Kate Winslet as Belle.

If you're going to go with an animated version, go with Mr. Magoo's comedic version. If you want something a little more sophisticated, go with Jim Carrey's 3-D version. This version isn't atrocious, but it's also not very good. It'll draw in quite a few viewings because of the cast, but how much more fun would it have been if it was a real-people movie with the same cast? Maybe everyone signed on thinking that was the case, and maybe the beginning real-people section was only added to appease audience members who were under the same impression when they rented it.

I've seen a repeating pattern when it comes to reviews of this movie, the animation's bad, mice are evil, it's different from the original.

For being different from the original, A Christmas Carol stands as one of the most adapted works out there, least it feels like it with how many we got. It wouldn't hurt to try and change things up just to stand out, otherwise people would say it brings nothing new to the table. Guess this film was gonna lose no matter what.

The mice, most I can say scenes centering on them were to pad out the runtime, At the very least they don't talk and thus don't become horribly unbearable.

The animation... I guess after seeing so many works by Don Bluth and at Disney standards had grown. The animation here is otherwise acceptable, nowhere near as terrible as people make it out to be though still not great. But it does stand out to me, whether against some beautiful storyboards. It fits the narrative and tone, so to speak.

Course you may be asking, what could be worse than this adaptation?

Bah Humduck, which hits two of the three same sins as this film, only difference is that their liberties cripple the original tale way worse.