A Christmas Carol (www.the-usher.com)

"You will be haunted by three spirits"

Ebenezer Scrooge (Carrey) had been a miser with his money all of his life. Since the passing of his business partner Jacob Marley (Oldman) seven years earlier, he had become even worse but on the night before Christmas the ghostly apparition of Marley appeared before him, covered in chains. Scrooge’s former partner told him that a worse fate was waiting for him if he didn’t change his ways and that he would be visited by three spirits who would shows him what he had done to deserve these chains.

Director Robert Zemeckis has taken us to magical worlds, through time and introduced us to characters that have become part of cinematic history but can he adapt one of Charles Dickens’s most beloved stories into something new.

There was a time that Robert Zemeckis was consider one of the most technically gifted filmmakers working in live action cinema. Commercial and critical hits like ‘Romancing the Stone’, the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy, ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, ‘Death Becomes Her’, ‘What Lies Beneath’, ‘Cast Away’ and his Oscar winning ‘Forest Gump’ brought him to the forefront of motion picture making but then Robert Zemeckis through himself into a technology with he though would change the business forever, performance capture.

Motion capture had been around for a while before Zemeckis and his creative team got hold of it in early part of the new millennium. Used extensively in video games to capture the moment of sports stars to create more realistic looking games, the visual effects industry also used it to create realistic movement for some of their strange and wonderful creations but Zemeckis wanted to take it to the next step for animation. His approach would see the actors themselves giving a physical as well as a vocal performance to breath life into their characters and all of their movements, including their body and, most importantly, their face would be captured by a computers and transferring to the creation of their character. With ‘The Polar Express’ and ‘Beowulf’ behind him, Zemeckis moved onto recreating the most beloved story of the winter holiday season, Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ and he has produced a film that will become a firm festive favourite.

The story is a classic tale of redemption, as Ebenezer Scrooge is shown the error of his ways by the spirit of his long dead partner Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas, past, present and future. Robert Zemeckis stays with the essence of the story and the language but takes us on a roller coaster ride through the life and future of Scrooge to showcase the performance capture technology, IMAX and 3D (at home and in the cinema). This means that there are many sequences and scenes that you might not remember from the classic tale, making the film more a ride in some places than the cautionary tale that Dickens wanted to tell.

The performance capture technology allows actors to really breath live into an animated character both physically and verbally. Gary Oldman as Bob Cratchit, Colin Firth as Scrooge’s nephew Fred, Robin Wright Penn as Belle and Bob Hoskins as Mr. Fezziwig all performed their roles on a motion capture stage and these were then transported to the beautifully recreated Dickensian setting of the classic tale. The problem is that, as with ‘The Polar Express’ and ‘Beowulf’, the characters just look like CG versions of the actual actors, making you wonder why Robert Zemeckis did not just make the movie live action. The argument comes from the performance of Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge. As Zemeckis did with Ray Winstone in ‘Beowulf’, the CG animation and performance capture allows Carrey to completely transform his appearance into Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. Even with advances in makeup and other digital effects, this freedom is only available with animation and this is Zemeckis’ argument for using this technique.

Robert Zemeckis’ version of the Charles Dickens’ classic ‘A Christmas Carol’ is destined to become a firm favourite over the festive season. While the use of Dickensian language throughout and some genuine scary moments for younger children, especially during the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come scenes, this is storytelling at its very best and a great way to introduce a whole new audience to this beloved tale.

A Christmas Carol is available in an exclusive 3D Showcase Disc which provides the movie in all its available formats, DVD, Blu-ray and 3D.

BONUS FEATURES

Capturing Dickens - A Novel Retelling
On Set With Sammi
Deleted Scenes
Discover Blu-Ray 3D With Timon and Pumbaa
Dylan & Cole Sprouse Blu-ray is Suite

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2009