Scrooge: Un (mé)chant de Noël

I'm a bit of a Scrooge-a-holic, always looking for new versions of the classic tale. While the animation here was quite striking, what they did with it added little to the story. A Christmas Carol is a story of redemption. This Scrooge is terrorized by the characters he encounters. After seeing his headstone, he falls into a kind of hell, ending up in his bedroom. Was this a story of redemption or an ugly assault on the senses. Because all the children looked bright eyed and healthy, even Tiny Tim, I couldn't buy into the pathos. Dickens meant the world to be a dark one because it reflected what many in Victorian England faced every day: poverty, hopelessness, and fear. Scrooge, in the original, propagated that through indifference and inaction. By the way, I found the nephew absolutely insufferable and Cratchit way too insignificant. We get little character development and some of the best parts of the story are glossed over or treated without foundation. I also found the dog silly and unnecessary.

Yet another film transposition of one of the most beautiful and iconic Christmas stories of all time and I can say by heart that this is the ugliest and least faithful of all, even if the film itself is not bad but when compared to all the others done so far this is the worst done. The main problems of the film are two, one is the dog that has absolutely nothing to do with it and is just annoying for most of the film and the other is the fact that the film is too childish, denaturing the more adult part of the original work in favor of an audience of small children, thus taking away a lot from the original teaching of history to make it more likeable.

If you're going to make a remake at least try and improve something. The 1970 musical is the favorite version of this story at our house so we're a bit biased. It started out more original by incorporating Dickens childhood for Scrooges but then started semi-copying the musical numbers (rushed tempos and horribly shortened). And a dog??!! Scrooge was much too mean and stingy to have ever entertained having a pet. Hollywood - please please try doing something original. A new score would have been much better to go along with all the other changes that were made. It was like they wanted to tell it a new way but then kept changing their minds and copying bits and pieces of the well done 1970 version. Those who are unfamiliar with the Albert Finney masterpiece will enjoy it I think. But for those of us who treasure that version, this was all a bit confusing.

There have been over 100 versions of this story on film and TV in the last 100 years or so.

This one, while competently made, adds nothing to the canon.

It is technically well enough done and has some fine glitz and glitter, but the plot is truncated to the point of abandonment; the character development isn't; the songs, with some exceptions are lifeless and listless.

How can I say this: even Tiny Tim comes off as a two-minute afterthought.

It's not that the story can't abide restaging. The best may still be the 1951 Alistair Sim, but the 1992 Muppet version was fresh and winning, and eve last month's Spirited gave us some pizzaz and some energy.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol 2022, while not bad, per se, was as unnecessary a project as I can remember.

I am one of those people that can love movies solely on the artwork and music. This movie served several, strong music "reveal" moments. I would compare it to how you felt the first time you watched "Show Yourself" and/or "Rewrite the Stars." So many of those moments. Also, I found it to be hilarious. If you're big on the traditional Dickens style, this may not be the movie for you. Because it's loosely comparable. CAN BE SCARY FOR SOME KIDDOS. The ending is a little darker than maybe some of the other adaptations. I would say it's similar to the Moana ending. All in all, I wept through the whole thing, lol. My Spotify playlist gained nearly the whole soundtrack!