A Christmas Carol (2009 film)
Encyclopedia
A Christmas Carol is a 2009 film written and directed by Robert Zemeckis
. It is an adaptation of the Charles Dickens
story of the same name
and stars Jim Carrey
in a multitude of roles, including Ebenezer Scrooge
as a young, middle-aged, and old man, and the three ghosts who haunt Scrooge.
The 3-D
film was produced through the process of performance capture, a technique Zemeckis previously used in his films The Polar Express
(2004) and Beowulf
(2007).
A Christmas Carol began filming in February 2008, and was released on November 3, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures
. It received its world premiere
in London, coinciding with the switching on of the annual Oxford Street
and Regent Street
Christmas lights, which in 2009 had a Dickens theme.
The film was released in Disney Digital 3-D
and was the first Disney movie in IMAX 3-D
. It is also Disney's third film retelling of A Christmas Carol following 1983's Mickey's Christmas Carol
and 1992's The Muppet Christmas Carol
. The film also marks Jim Carrey
's first role in a Walt Disney Pictures
film (the first Disney film that Carrey had a role in was Simon Birch
in 1998 released under the company's Hollywood Pictures
banner), and was also his second Christmas film (the first being How the Grinch Stole Christmas).
(Jim Carrey
), a bitter and miser
ly old moneylender
at a London
counting house
holds everything that embodies the joys and spirit of Christmas
in contempt, refusing to visit his cheerful nephew Fred (Colin Firth
) at his Christmas dinner
party with his family, and forcing his underpaid employee Bob Cratchit
(Gary Oldman
) to beg to take the day off for his own family. That night, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley
(Oldman) who had died seven years prior on Christmas Eve and is now forced to spend his afterlife carrying heavy chains that were forged from his own greedy ways. Marley warns Scrooge that he will suffer an even worse fate if he does not repent and foretells that he will be haunted by three spirits that will help guide him.
The first spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Past
(Carrey), which shows Scrooge visions of his own past that take place on or around the Christmas season, reminding Scrooge of how he ended up the avaricious man he is now. Scrooge had spent much of his childhood neglected by his father over the holidays at boarding school until he was finally brought home by his loving sister Fan (Robin Wright Penn
), who died prematurely after giving birth to his nephew, Fred. Scrooge later began a successful career in business and money lending, and became engaged to a woman named Belle (Penn), though she later called off the engagement when he began to grow obsessed with accumulating his own wealth. Unable to bear having to witness these events again, Scrooge extinguishes the spirit with its candle snuffer
cap.
The second spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Present
(Carrey), which shows Scrooge the happiness of his fellow men on Christmas Day. Among them are his nephew, Fred, who playfully makes jokes with his family at Scrooge's expense, and Bob Cratchit and his family, who are just barely able to make do with what little pay Scrooge gives Cratchit. Scrooge is touched by the Cratchits' sickly young son Tiny Tim (played by Oldman, voiced by Ryan Ochoa
) and his commitment to the spirit of Christmas, and is dismayed to learn from the spirit that Tim may not have much longer to live. Before dying, the spirit warns Scrooge about the evils of "Ignorance" and "Want," which manifest themselves before Scrooge as two wretched children who grow into violent, insane individuals.
The third and final spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
(Carrey), which toys with Scrooge by chasing him through the streets of London on a carriage before showing him the final consequences of his greed. Scrooge sees in this future that he has died: Fred and his wife are elated to inherit Scrooge's wealth, Scrooge's maid is shown to have robbed him, and the men who attended his funeral had only gone for a free lunch. Tiny Tim is also shown to have died, leaving Bob Cratchit and his family to mourn him on Christmas. Horrified, Scrooge asks the spirit whether the images he has seen are sure to happen or can be changed. To little response, the spirit forces Scrooge to fall into his empty coffin sitting above the fires of Hell
.
Scrooge suddenly awakens on Christmas Day to find that all three spirits have visited him in a dream over the course of one night. The story concludes with Scrooge living the rest of his life as a second father to Tiny Tim, and as a changed man who embodies the spirit of Christmas.
, The Twilight Saga: New Moon and Paranormal Activity despite family competition from Nativity!, another Christmas-themed movie.
reports that 52% of 181 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average
of 5.9 out of 10. The site's consensus is that "Robert Zemeckis' 3-D animated take on the Dickens classic tries hard, but its dazzling special effects distract from an array of fine performances from Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman." Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 50%, based on a sample of 32 reviews.
Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 55 based on 32 reviews.
In his review, Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
gave the movie four stars, calling it "an exhilarating visual experience". Owen Gleiberman
of Entertainment Weekly
gave the film an A, applauding the film as "a marvelous and touching yuletide toy of a movie". Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News
gave the film 3/5 stars, but claimed the film "is well-crafted but artless, detailed but lacking soul." Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com
gave the film a mixed review claiming the movie "is a triumph of something — but it's certainly not the Christmas spirit." Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal wrote in his review that the film's "tone is joyless, despite an extended passage of bizarre laughter, several dazzling flights of digital fancy, a succession of striking images and Jim Carrey's voicing of Scrooge plus half a dozen other roles."
In the UK, most reviewers criticised the technology, Daily Telegraph reviewer Tim Robey wrote "How much is gained by the half-real visual style for this story is open to question – the early scenes are laborious and never quite alive, and the explosion of jollity at the end lacks the virtue of being funny". Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian
also criticised the technology "The hi-tech sheen is impressive, but in an unexciting way. I wanted to see real human faces convey real human emotions.". Time Out London praised the film for sticking to Dickens' original dialogue but also questioned the technology by saying "To an extent, this ‘Christmas Carol’ is a case of style – and stylisation – overwhelming substance."
, two disc 2D
Blu-ray
/DVD combo and in a four-disc combo pack that includes a Blu-ray 3D, a Blu-ray 2D, a DVD and a Digital Copy
. This marks the first time that a movie is available in Blu-ray 3D the same day as a standard Blu-ray 2D, as well as Disney's first in the Blu-ray 3D market. The DVD contains deleted scenes and two features called "On Set with Sammi" and "Capturing a Christmas Carol". The Blu-ray 2D also has a "Digital Advent Calendar" and the feaurette "Behind the Carol: The Full Motion Capture Experience. The Blu-ray 3D has an exclusive 3D game called "Mr. Scrooge's Wild Ride".
The film is rated PG in Australia, however the rating was later changed to M in New Zealand.
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...
. It is an adaptation of the Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
story of the same name
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
and stars Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey
James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
in a multitude of roles, including Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness...
as a young, middle-aged, and old man, and the three ghosts who haunt Scrooge.
The 3-D
Stereoscopy
Stereoscopy refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth...
film was produced through the process of performance capture, a technique Zemeckis previously used in his films The Polar Express
The Polar Express (film)
The Polar Express is a 2004 motion capture computer-animated film based on the children's book of the same title by Chris Van Allsburg. Written, produced, and directed by Robert Zemeckis, the human characters in the film were animated using live action performance capture technique, with the...
(2004) and Beowulf
Beowulf (2007 film)
Beowulf is a 2007 American animated fantasy film written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary inspired by the Old English epic poem of the same name. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the film was created through a motion capture process similar to the technique he used in The Polar Express...
(2007).
A Christmas Carol began filming in February 2008, and was released on November 3, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
. It received its world premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
in London, coinciding with the switching on of the annual Oxford Street
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...
and Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...
Christmas lights, which in 2009 had a Dickens theme.
The film was released in Disney Digital 3-D
Disney Digital 3-D
Disney Digital 3-D is a brand used by the Walt Disney Company to describe three-dimensional films made and released by the Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and shown exclusively using digital projection....
and was the first Disney movie in IMAX 3-D
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
. It is also Disney's third film retelling of A Christmas Carol following 1983's Mickey's Christmas Carol
Mickey's Christmas Carol
Mickey's Christmas Carol is a 1983 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Company. It was directed and produced by Burny Mattinson...
and 1992's The Muppet Christmas Carol
The Muppet Christmas Carol
The Muppet Christmas Carol is a 1992 musical comedy film adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, starring Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge, directed by Brian Henson, produced by The Jim Henson Company, and released by Walt Disney Pictures...
. The film also marks Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey
James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
's first role in a Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
film (the first Disney film that Carrey had a role in was Simon Birch
Simon Birch
Simon Birch is a 1998 American [drama] film loosely based on A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. It was directed and written for the screen by Mark Steven Johnson. The film stars Ian Michael Smith, Joseph Mazzello, Ashley Judd, Oliver Platt, and Jim Carrey. It omitted much of the latter half of...
in 1998 released under the company's Hollywood Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Hollywood Pictures is one of The Walt Disney Company's several alternate movie divisions. Like Disney's Touchstone Pictures brand, it produces films for a more mature adult audience than Walt Disney Pictures.-History:...
banner), and was also his second Christmas film (the first being How the Grinch Stole Christmas).
Plot
In 1843, Ebenezer ScroogeEbenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness...
(Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey
James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
), a bitter and miser
Miser
A miser, cheapskate, snipe-snout, penny pincher, piker, scrooge, skinflint or tightwad is a person who is reluctant to spend money, sometimes to the point of forgoing even basic comforts and some necessities...
ly old moneylender
Moneylender
A moneylender is a person or group who offers small personal loans at high rates of interest.-See also:* Microfinance - provision of financial services to low-income individuals....
at a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
counting house
Counting house
A counting house, or compting house, literally is the building, room, office or suite in which a business firm carries on operations, particularly accounting. By a synecdoche, it has come to mean the accounting operations of a firm, however housed...
holds everything that embodies the joys and spirit of Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
in contempt, refusing to visit his cheerful nephew Fred (Colin Firth
Colin Firth
SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
) at his Christmas dinner
Christmas dinner
Christmas dinner is the primary meal traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. In many ways the meal is similar to a standard Sunday dinner. Christmas feasts have traditionally been luxurious and abundant...
party with his family, and forcing his underpaid employee Bob Cratchit
Bob Cratchit
Robert "Bob" Cratchit is a fictional character who is the abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol...
(Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman
Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor, voice actor, filmmaker and musician.A member of the 1980s Brit Pack, Oldman came to prominence via starring roles in British films Meantime , Sid and Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears , with his performance in the latter bringing him his first BAFTA Award...
) to beg to take the day off for his own family. That night, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley
Jacob Marley
Jacob Marley is a fictional character who appears in Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.- Relationship with Scrooge:In life, Marley was the business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge. As teenagers, both men had been apprenticed in business and met as clerks in another business...
(Oldman) who had died seven years prior on Christmas Eve and is now forced to spend his afterlife carrying heavy chains that were forged from his own greedy ways. Marley warns Scrooge that he will suffer an even worse fate if he does not repent and foretells that he will be haunted by three spirits that will help guide him.
The first spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Past
Ghost of Christmas Past
The Ghost of Christmas Past is a character in the well-known work of the English novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.The Ghost of Christmas Past was the first of the three spirits that haunted the miser. Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent...
(Carrey), which shows Scrooge visions of his own past that take place on or around the Christmas season, reminding Scrooge of how he ended up the avaricious man he is now. Scrooge had spent much of his childhood neglected by his father over the holidays at boarding school until he was finally brought home by his loving sister Fan (Robin Wright Penn
Robin Wright Penn
Robin Virginia Gayle Wright is an American actress. She first rose to fame on the television series Santa Barbara as Kelly Capwell which earned her three Daytime Emmy nominations. She then went on to star in films such as The Princess Bride and Toys both of which earned her nominations for the...
), who died prematurely after giving birth to his nephew, Fred. Scrooge later began a successful career in business and money lending, and became engaged to a woman named Belle (Penn), though she later called off the engagement when he began to grow obsessed with accumulating his own wealth. Unable to bear having to witness these events again, Scrooge extinguishes the spirit with its candle snuffer
Candle snuffer
In modern times, a candle snuffer is an instrument used to extinguish burning candles. This is accomplished by smothering the flame with a small metal cup that is suspended from a long handle, and thus depriving it of oxygen. The use of a candle snuffer helps to avoid problems associated with...
cap.
The second spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Present
Ghost of Christmas Present
The Ghost of Christmas Present is a character in one of the best-known works of the English novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. The Spirit closely resembles Father Christmas from local folklore....
(Carrey), which shows Scrooge the happiness of his fellow men on Christmas Day. Among them are his nephew, Fred, who playfully makes jokes with his family at Scrooge's expense, and Bob Cratchit and his family, who are just barely able to make do with what little pay Scrooge gives Cratchit. Scrooge is touched by the Cratchits' sickly young son Tiny Tim (played by Oldman, voiced by Ryan Ochoa
Ryan Ochoa
Ryan Ochoa is an American teen actor. He is most famous for his role of Lanny on the Disney XD series Pair of Kings and his recurring role as Chuck Chambers on the Nickelodeon series iCarly.-Early life:...
) and his commitment to the spirit of Christmas, and is dismayed to learn from the spirit that Tim may not have much longer to live. Before dying, the spirit warns Scrooge about the evils of "Ignorance" and "Want," which manifest themselves before Scrooge as two wretched children who grow into violent, insane individuals.
The third and final spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, A.K.A., The Ghost of Christmas Future, is a fictional character in English novelist Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is the ghost that haunts the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, in order to prompt him to adopt a more caring attitude in life and avoid the horrid...
(Carrey), which toys with Scrooge by chasing him through the streets of London on a carriage before showing him the final consequences of his greed. Scrooge sees in this future that he has died: Fred and his wife are elated to inherit Scrooge's wealth, Scrooge's maid is shown to have robbed him, and the men who attended his funeral had only gone for a free lunch. Tiny Tim is also shown to have died, leaving Bob Cratchit and his family to mourn him on Christmas. Horrified, Scrooge asks the spirit whether the images he has seen are sure to happen or can be changed. To little response, the spirit forces Scrooge to fall into his empty coffin sitting above the fires of Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
.
Scrooge suddenly awakens on Christmas Day to find that all three spirits have visited him in a dream over the course of one night. The story concludes with Scrooge living the rest of his life as a second father to Tiny Tim, and as a changed man who embodies the spirit of Christmas.
Cast
- Jim CarreyJim CarreyJames Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
as:- Ebenezer ScroogeEbenezer ScroogeEbenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness...
, a cold-hearted, tight fisted, greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness. - Ghost of Christmas PastGhost of Christmas PastThe Ghost of Christmas Past is a character in the well-known work of the English novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.The Ghost of Christmas Past was the first of the three spirits that haunted the miser. Ebenezer Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent...
, the first of the three spirits that haunt Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent. He is depicted as a young, androgynous human with a waxy, candle-like body and a flickering flame for a head, who speaks in a dreamy, slow voice with an Irish accent, and sways about. - Ghost of Christmas PresentGhost of Christmas PresentThe Ghost of Christmas Present is a character in one of the best-known works of the English novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. The Spirit closely resembles Father Christmas from local folklore....
, the second of the three spirits. He is depicted as a large, jolly man with red hair, a full beard, and a green ermineStoatThe stoat , also known as the ermine or short-tailed weasel, is a species of Mustelid native to Eurasia and North America, distinguished from the least weasel by its larger size and longer tail with a prominent black tip...
robe who ages rapidly while he is with Scrooge. He has a tendency to laugh heartily, even as he dies, and carries the sins of IgnoranceIgnoranceIgnorance is a state of being uninformed . The word ignorant is an adjective describing a person in the state of being unaware and is often used as an insult...
and WantWantThe idea of want can be examined from many perspectives. In secular societies want might be considered similar to the emotion desire, which can be studied scientifically through the disciplines of psychology or sociology...
upon his person, in the forms of horrifying, savage children. - Ghost of Christmas Yet to ComeGhost of Christmas Yet to ComeThe Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, A.K.A., The Ghost of Christmas Future, is a fictional character in English novelist Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is the ghost that haunts the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, in order to prompt him to adopt a more caring attitude in life and avoid the horrid...
, the third of the three spirits. It is depicted as a large shadow in the shape of the Grim ReaperDeath (personification)The concept of death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, Death is often given the name Grim Reaper and, from the 15th century onwards, came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood...
cast across the ground or a wall, and occasionally emerges into three dimensions to point at something or to chase Scrooge in a large, shadow-like horse carriage.
- Ebenezer Scrooge
- Robin Wright Penn as:
- Belle, Scrooge's neglected fiancée.
- Fan Scrooge, Scrooge's late sister, who died prematurely after giving birth to Scrooge's nephew, Fred.
- Gary OldmanGary OldmanGary Leonard Oldman is an English actor, voice actor, filmmaker and musician.A member of the 1980s Brit Pack, Oldman came to prominence via starring roles in British films Meantime , Sid and Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears , with his performance in the latter bringing him his first BAFTA Award...
as:- Bob CratchitBob CratchitRobert "Bob" Cratchit is a fictional character who is the abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol...
, Scrooge's abused, underpaid clerk. - Jacob MarleyJacob MarleyJacob Marley is a fictional character who appears in Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.- Relationship with Scrooge:In life, Marley was the business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge. As teenagers, both men had been apprenticed in business and met as clerks in another business...
, Scrooge's former business partner. - Tiny TimTiny Tim (A Christmas Carol)Timothy Cratchit, called "Tiny Tim", is a fictional character from the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. He is a minor character, the young son of Bob Cratchit, and is seen only briefly, but serves as an important symbol of the consequences of the protagonist's choices...
, Cratchit's youngest son. His voice is provided by Ryan OchoaRyan OchoaRyan Ochoa is an American teen actor. He is most famous for his role of Lanny on the Disney XD series Pair of Kings and his recurring role as Chuck Chambers on the Nickelodeon series iCarly.-Early life:...
.
- Bob Cratchit
- Colin FirthColin FirthSirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
as Fred, Scrooge's optimistic nephew and only living relative. - Cary ElwesCary ElwesIvan Simon Cary Elwes , known professionally as Cary Elwes, is an English actor. The son of Dominick Elwes and Tessa Georgina Kennedy, Elwes acted in off-Broadway plays during college and moved to the United States in the early 1980s. He is known for his role as Westley in the cult classic The...
as:- Dick Wilkins, Scrooge's old roommate.
- Mad Fiddler
- Businessman #1
- Portly Gentleman #1, a man who requests from Scrooge a donation to those less fortunate.
- Destitute Man #2
- Bob HoskinsBob HoskinsRobert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...
as:- Mr. FezziwigFezziwigMr. and Mrs. Fezziwig are characters featured in the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. Mr. Fezziwig is the owner of a warehouse business; Ebenezer Scrooge and Dick Wilkins worked as apprentices for him. Mr. Fezziwig is a happy, foppish man with a large Welsh wig. In Stave 2 of A...
, the proprietor of a warehouse business for whom Scrooge worked as an apprentice. - Old Joe, a fenceFence (criminal)A fence is an individual who knowingly buys stolen property for later resale, sometimes in a legitimate market. The fence thus acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may or may not be aware that the goods are stolen. As a verb, the word describes the...
who buys the belongings of the deceased Scrooge from Scrooge's old maidMaidA maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.-Description:Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case...
.
- Mr. Fezziwig
- Fionnula Flanagan as Mrs. Dilber.
- Molly C. QuinnMolly C. QuinnMolly Caitlyn Quinn is an American actress whose works have included theatre, film, and television.-Life and career:Quinn is of Irish descent and was born in Texarkana, Texas. She began taking weekly acting lessons from retired director and producer Martin Beck after performing in her community's...
as Belinda Cratchit, Bob Cratchit's wife. - Ron BottittaRon BottittaRon Bottitta is a British actor appearing in theatre but also in minor roles in both television and film.-Filmography:* 2004 - Boston Public* 2004 - In Good Company* 2005 - A Lot Like Love* 2005 - Mr. & Mrs...
as:- Tattered Caroler
- Well-Dressed Caroler
Production
Zemeckis has stated previously that A Christmas Carol is one of his favorite stories dealing with time travel. Carrey has described the film as "a classical version of A Christmas Carol [...] There are a lot of vocal things, a lot of physical things, I have to do. Not to mention doing the accents properly, the English, Irish accents [...] I want it to fly in the UK. I want it to be good and I want them to go, 'Yeah, that's for real.' We were very true to the book. It's beautiful. It's an incredible film."Box office
The film opened at number one in 3,683 theaters, grossing $30,051,075 its opening weekend, with an average of $8,159 per theater. The film has come to gross an estimated $137,481,366 in the United States and Canada and $181,000,000 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $318,481,366. In the UK, A Christmas Carol topped the box office on two separate occasions; the first was when it opened, the second was 5 weeks later when it leapfrogged box office chart toppers 20122012 (film)
2012 is a 2009 American disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. It stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson. It was produced by Emmerich's production company, Centropolis Entertainment and was distributed by Columbia Pictures...
, The Twilight Saga: New Moon and Paranormal Activity despite family competition from Nativity!, another Christmas-themed movie.
Critical reaction
The film received mixed to positive reviews from US film critics. Review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 52% of 181 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
of 5.9 out of 10. The site's consensus is that "Robert Zemeckis' 3-D animated take on the Dickens classic tries hard, but its dazzling special effects distract from an array of fine performances from Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman." Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 50%, based on a sample of 32 reviews.
Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 55 based on 32 reviews.
In his review, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
gave the movie four stars, calling it "an exhilarating visual experience". Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the film an A, applauding the film as "a marvelous and touching yuletide toy of a movie". Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
gave the film 3/5 stars, but claimed the film "is well-crafted but artless, detailed but lacking soul." Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
gave the film a mixed review claiming the movie "is a triumph of something — but it's certainly not the Christmas spirit." Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal wrote in his review that the film's "tone is joyless, despite an extended passage of bizarre laughter, several dazzling flights of digital fancy, a succession of striking images and Jim Carrey's voicing of Scrooge plus half a dozen other roles."
In the UK, most reviewers criticised the technology, Daily Telegraph reviewer Tim Robey wrote "How much is gained by the half-real visual style for this story is open to question – the early scenes are laborious and never quite alive, and the explosion of jollity at the end lacks the virtue of being funny". Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
also criticised the technology "The hi-tech sheen is impressive, but in an unexciting way. I wanted to see real human faces convey real human emotions.". Time Out London praised the film for sticking to Dickens' original dialogue but also questioned the technology by saying "To an extent, this ‘Christmas Carol’ is a case of style – and stylisation – overwhelming substance."
Home video
Disney released the film on November 16, 2010 in a single-disc DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, two disc 2D
2D
2D or II-D may refer to:* 2-d, two-dimensional space* 2D geometric model* Bi-dimensional space* 2D computer graphics* 2D , a member of the virtual band Gorillaz* Oflag II-D* Stalag II-D* Transcription factor II D...
Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
/DVD combo and in a four-disc combo pack that includes a Blu-ray 3D, a Blu-ray 2D, a DVD and a Digital Copy
Digital copy
Digital Copy provides consumers who purchase a film on DVD or Blu-ray Disc with an additional, digital copy of the movie for devices capable of operating with a file in contrast to a DVD.-Features:...
. This marks the first time that a movie is available in Blu-ray 3D the same day as a standard Blu-ray 2D, as well as Disney's first in the Blu-ray 3D market. The DVD contains deleted scenes and two features called "On Set with Sammi" and "Capturing a Christmas Carol". The Blu-ray 2D also has a "Digital Advent Calendar" and the feaurette "Behind the Carol: The Full Motion Capture Experience. The Blu-ray 3D has an exclusive 3D game called "Mr. Scrooge's Wild Ride".
The film is rated PG in Australia, however the rating was later changed to M in New Zealand.
See also
- A Christmas Carol (score)A Christmas Carol (score)A Christmas Carol is a soundtrack for the 2009 film of the same name. The music was composed by Alan Silvestri. The album is only available the digital music stores. The song "God Bless Us Everyone" was written by Silvestri and Glen Ballard and performed Andrea Bocelli.-Track listing:...
- List of A Christmas Carol adaptations
- List of 3-D films