Despite creepy characters, 'Carol' has stellar animation

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In this film publicity image released by Disney, Ebenezer Scrooge, voiced by Jim Carrey, is shown in a scene from "A Christmas Carol." (AP Photo/Disney, ImageMovers Digital LLC) (ImageMovers Digital LLC. (HO))

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Leaving aside for a few moments the technology behind Robert Zemeckis’ animated “A Christmas Carol,” this is the most satisfying version of Charles Dickens' oft-told tale in years.

Yes, everyone is supposed to focus on the words “performance capture,” but this retelling succeeds on the strength of Zemeckis’ script. Injecting the story with the lightning pace found in his early screenplays (“I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Used Cars”), Zemeckis remains remarkably faithful to Dickens’ text and rescues it from decades of overuse.

“A Christmas Carol” has been adapted so many times (especially after sitcom writers from the 1970s onward realized that having a character dream about being Scrooge would be an easy Christmas episode) the story has been sanitized into pablum.

Zemeckis remembers two things often overlooked about the tale.

First, that this is a ghost story, so Zemeckis cranks up the scare factor (when I saw the movie, the little girl behind me screamed when the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come appears).

Second, that this is a story that rails against social injustice, as most of Dickens’ works do. The moment when the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals man’s “orphans” Ignorance and Want probably hasn’t been as chilling since the story was first published in 1843.

Taking just the production design into account, the look of the film is stunning. During the credits Zemeckis treats us to a fly-by of early 19th century London that is as authentic as it is fantastic and is especially thrilling when viewed in 3D. The effect is picked up again when the jolly Ghost of Christmas Present turns Scrooge’s sitting room into a sort of glass-bottomed boat and whisks the room around London to spy on other people’s holiday celebrations.

This “Christmas Carol” would be just about perfect except for Zemeckis’ obsession with the highly imperfect technology called performance capture. Previously called simply motion capture, the technology is a short-cut in computer animation where performers wear tights covered with sensors so that a computer can duplicate their movements. This is used most often in video games to mimic a baseball player’s swing, a martial artist’s kicks, etc.

Zemeckis fell for performance capture with “The Polar Express” and continued to experiment in “Beowulf.” Zemeckis also places sensors on actors’ faces to digitize their expressions as well as their movements, but in the first two films the characters looked disturbing, like mannequins with Plasticine movie star heads.

The process has improved greatly with “Christmas Carol,” but it still isn’t hasn’t come far enough. Fortunately, Zemeckis had the masterstroke to cast Jim Carrey as Scrooge. A rubber-faced comedian from the start of his career, Carrey’s features mesh the most successfully with his computer-animated avatars (he also plays the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, as well as the younger versions of Scrooge).

Even though Scrooge’s features are angular and exaggerated with pointed nose and chin, you actually see Carrey emote within this CG visage, and not in a creepy way. For most of the movie we are looking a character where the promise of performance capture nearly works.

See CAROL, page 3D

That isn’t true of the supporting roles, though. While the eyes no longer look like they came from a taxidermist’s shop, the faces still appear to be molded from mortician’s wax. It is disconcerting to see a wan, shiny Colin Firth as Scrooge’s nephew, Fred. Ironically, the only character that doesn’t look like a corpse is Marley’s Ghost. Phosphorescent green becomes him.

Marley’s Ghost is the film’s best use of Gary Oldman. He also plays Bob Cratchit, but the animators have stretched his features and compressed his frame to make him resemble Alfred E. Newman as a Munchkin. The filmmakers’ most unfortunate decision was to use Oldman as a model for Tiny Tim, resulting in a doll’s face with Sid Vicious’ sneer. You’ve made a big mistake with “A Christmas Carol” when the sight of Tiny Tim makes the viewer’s flesh crawl.

As odd as the supporting characters look, this is not the holiday nightmare that “The Polar Express” became. You don’t have to avert your eyes that often to let the spectacular animation and the accompanying 3D effects wash over you.

Most of the time, Zemeckis doesn’t allow the technology to overwhelm the story. Just once does he present special effects for the sake of special effects – in a bizarre sequence where the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shrinks Scrooge to the size of a mouse and sends him whizzing through London’s drain pipes.

The big question for any new version of “A Christmas Carol” is if Scrooge’s redemption will exalt the audience. No screen actor has played the transformation more jubilantly than Alistair Sim in the 1951 British film “Scrooge.” Carrey and Zemeckis clearly studied Sim’s performance because they lift some of his inflections and some of his leaps, but they also capture his joy.

Such holiday cheer is the best you can ask from “A Christmas Carol,” even if Tiny Tim gives you the creeps.

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