A Christmas Carol is Robert Zemeckis’s third motion-captured animated film, and it is his best. This time around he takes another classic Christmas tale (his first being The Polar Express) and transforms it into the most visually dazzling adaptation of Charles Dickens’s novel. During the opening title sequence, the camera soars above mid-nineteenth century London, weaving over rooftops and around buildings. It’s a marvelous showcase for the film’s visual style, and Zemeckis has learned how to take full advantage of the burgeoning technology he continues to champion.
Everybody knows Ebenezer Scrooge, the iconic old grouch who wants nothing to do with holiday merriment. Even with the character’s numerous incarnations, Jim Carrey brings something new to the portrayal, aided by character-driven computer rendering that allows the actor to dictate the character’s full performance. But Scrooge is also animated, so when the feeble old man falls flat on his face, we know he’ll be okay.
As the story goes, Scrooge is visited on Christmas Eve by three spirits: the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The lessons of the spirits are clear enough and well known by all. In the past, Scrooge sees himself as he once was—a lonely child, a jovial young man, and as a businessman that becomes increasingly crotchety with increasing age. In the present, he sees how his behavior adversely affects those around him, and in the future he sees his grave and how he will be remembered. That is, of course, only if the path he’s set before himself remains unaltered. The moral of the story? Alter the path.
In most of these sequences, we also see life in cold, old London. We see how thrifty Scrooge is with his coal, and we are so convinced by how cold the streets look, how dark and frozen, that we feel the coldness of a pre-industrial city. We see the want. Juxtapose this with kids running and playing, the warmness and love in many of the homes, and the all around cheer of the holiday, and we understand the general tone of the film. Scrooge is left cold and lonely because he rejects what Christmas represents to so many people. We know how the story goes, Tiny Tim and all, but it’s still great to see the old man’s transformation, and the city’s by extension.
As for Robert Zemeckis, he has always been a frontiersman when it comes to advances in filmmaking, and he always will be. While he is able to do more with motion-captured animation, I fear he will lose sight of what he’s done so well in the past, including not only conventional filming but also producing original stories. It has been almost ten years since Cast Away was released, and that’s far too long.
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