I took the kids today to go see this movie with the hopes of jump starting my Christmas spirit.

With stunning visual effects this movie that at times almost made you think that it wasn't an animated movie you were watching. The realistic London city scenery, stunning movement and realism of the characters down to their eyes was spectacular.

While I appreciate trying to stay as true to the Dickens novel but the older English talk and sayings were lost on young children and I found myself trying to explain what was said in the movie repeatedly to my 6 and 9 year olds.

I was also disappointed at the lack of focus on the Cratchit family and Tiny Tim. They are afterall the feel good part of the story. I didn't understand the shrinking Scrooge and his out of control journey through the pipes and sewers of London. He asks a kid to buy him the biggest Turkey at the market and then you never see what is done with it.

It is also an all Jim Carrey movie. Jim does not have enough depth as an actor to carry the multiple roles that he did in this movie. At one point I was uncertain where the Scrooge character ended and the Christmas Ghosts began.

That all said, as wonderful as Dickens' classic is, in my opinion it wasn't enough to carry this movie past a slightly above average rating.

Pretty good review. From what you say, it's a great departure from the cute and charming "Mickey's Christmas Carol" to something entirely different. Not just great, but enormous, because it seems like the opposite (Mickey's Christmas Carol was silly enough to elicit belly laughs, but kept the original plot the same).

However, I would have to disagree that the "archaic" English talk is lost on most kids today. Only those who have never seen but a mere nursery rhyme at the least. If you expose them to nursery rhymes and fairy tales when they're kids, even oldies such as "The North Wind Doth Blow", they'll understand that kind of talk. That kind of breadth of knowledge of the English language will benefit them in the future. Knowing words like the singular pronouns (thee, thou, thy, thine) and usages (such as thou hast vs you have), and of course words like "bequeath", "alas", "sundry", "henceforth", "fremd", and how to use them can always add a nice touch to something they write. For example, you could tell from context with "great" I meant "big", not "very good" because of your knowledge of English. You'd be surprised how fairly simple it is to teach old fashioned English to the youngsters. They absorb stuff like a sponge up until they're about 9 years old, but people still learn fairly quickly until they're about 23-24 years old, with a steady decline between age 9 and 25, which is why 12 and 13 year old kids are encouraged to learn a foreign language. It's much easier when you're that age than mid-20s and up (but still possible, I'm not exactly a spring chicken and I'm doing okay-ish learning Spanish, not great, but okay). Wonder if you can teach them Old English (like in Beowulf)...I would say probably yes.

One thing interesting that you said is that in many ways it's true to the novel, but many of the things you mentioned, such as the lack of focus on the Cratchit family, kind of contradicts that. Sounds like the director was going for a focus on the psychology of Scrooge, which although a central part of the story, completely misses the point of the original Dickens idea. Sounds to me like the movie gets it wrong by not really showing HOW it changed Scrooge to encounter the ghosts, not just the implication of change. I think due to that, and the focus on special effects, it may be classified more as a modern take on it. I can understand that Jim Carrey doesn't want to be typecast, but something like this doesn't sound like him at all. However, I may be wrong, after all, Robin Williams showed his ability to be serious (even though we all know he's every bit as zany as Jim Carrey naturally is). However, sometimes actos and actresses are one-dimensional enough that they only way they can do really well is to be typecast, so I have mixed feelings about the whole situation.

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