Review of Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022) by Jmarshallca — 06 Dec 2022

The film's flaws could be summed up just by looking at the Scrooge in this film.

As most of the English-speaking world knows, he's written is a bitter old miser, heavy with wrinkles and always scowling. He speaks mostly in callow dismissals and harsh rebukes.

This movie seems to think he's a cool grandpa who cracks wise, smirks often, and has a dog named Prudence. So the filmmakers either don't like Scrooge as written, or they're afraid of what audiences might think of this enduring figure in English literature. Take the logic of this character design, and extend it to the entire film. Any moment, character, or idea that might be poignant, evocative, or imaginative, is made to become irritatingly quirky, bombastic and exhausting, or cacophonous and overdone. This movie compels me to laugh when I shouldn't, if it elicits any emotion at all.

In between excessive effects and flailing humour, the movie itself is so forgettable as to be like a fog. Of the six or so songs performed in the film, the only memorable one is ripped off a much better 1970 Christmas Carol musical (even the choreography is the same), which it desperately hopes we've never heard of. The others have floating animated characters, dancing precisely alike, singing vaguely affirming pop ballads.

It's faintly entertaining to watch as a bad film, if you're amused by watching talent and money thrown into such a shallow effort, but you'll want to follow it up immediately with any other Christmas Carol adaptation.