Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

aramis-112-804880 SPOILERS AHEAD As a Dickens buff I watch all the new productions based on his works. "A Christmas Carol" has been done to death by repetition, with every shady character in every sitcom being "Scrooged" one way or another. But certain things about Dickens never seem to seep into most productions, including this one.This production is certainly one of the most elegant, showing details impossible in many previous productions, such as the details on Scrooge's hearth and the infamous "extinguisher cap." In that, it is the most accurate of productions.Patrick Stewart throws his heart into becoming Scrooge, looking younger and balder than most. His is a masculine Scrooge, able to get around without shuffling, and standing up to ghosts better than most. Stewart's is superior to the flat George C. Scott performance or that of the cloying (though famous) Alistair Sim. Richard E. Grant is not like the typical Bob Cratchit (i.e., David Collings in "Scrooge" or David Warner in Scott's 1985 version). Ian McNeice's Fezziwig surprising leaves lots to be desired; it would have thought this production might use someone like Richard Pearson. McNeice is capable of, but does not exhibit here, the necessary warmth or bonhomie.Joel Grey, on the other hand, is (again, surprisingly) accurate as the Spirit of Christmas Past. An old/young, short and shining man.However, what's missing in this production, as in so many, is Dickens' great humor. Admittedly, as in Wodehouse, most of Dickens' humor rises from his word choice rather than what he depicts (perhaps he discovered with PICKWICK his comic episodes aren't all that comic after all so he relied on language). Dickens is able to describe the most bitter episodes in his fiction in a way to raise at least a sardonic smile. That was what was most disappointing in the Sim version. Sim was an actor of enormous comic potential, but his "Christmas Carol" was too po-faced. Frankly, so is this one.Though David Warner was notable in the 1985 Scott version, far better than Grant, the only real alternative for Dickens' humor is the Albert Finney "Scrooge" (despite the liberties it takes with the text and dodgy "special effects"; and though the songs range from brilliant to utterly insipid with nothing in between!) And Albert Finney is able to bring in his performance of both the young and old Scrooge the Dickensian humor Stewart lacks.One more thing "A Christmas Carol" productions usually lack, including this one, is Fred's line "I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round-apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-as a good time . . ." In no production is the "sacred origin" of Christmas played up, and its absence makes Scrooge's conversion a bit hollow and perhaps a "humbug" to fool even Death.

X-FrostyFox-X In one scene in particular, i can't help but feel Patrick Stewart tried hard and failed as, Ebenezer Scrooge. The acting where he meets his dead partner of seven years, Jacob Marley (played wonderfully by, Bernard Lloyd), is down right awful. There is another scene in where Patrick Stewart first meets the "Ghost Of Christmas Future". I couldn't help but notice that scene was filmed during the day and edited to make it look like night. That is another scene in this movie i can not stand. But that wasn't the fault of Patrick Stewart or was it? That doesn't mean this is a bad adaptation. Far from it. This is a beautiful version of the classic story. But he didn't come across as mean as some of the others legends before him like, Michael Caine, George C. Scott, Alastair Sim and even Sir Seymour Hicks. But the acting from, Richard E. Grant as Bob Cratchit and Saskia Reeves as Mrs Cratchit and the rest of the supporting cast and Patrick Stewart in some cases makes up for those bad scenes in the movie. And add to the brilliant acting from the other cast members, the music is hauntingly beautiful. There for i give this version of the classic tale 7 out of 10.

Scarecrow-88 Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation takes up the role for TNT cable television as penny-pinching anti-Christmas grouch, Ebenezer Scrooge, visited by four spirits, including his former money-lender business partner, and stock exchange pro, Jacob Marley (whose funeral opens the movie), of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. If Scrooge is to be rescued from a possible fate most unkind, he must see the error of his ways and embrace the holiday spirit that is absent from his life.I think Stewart is well cast as Ebenezer Scrooge, his authoritative voice, the kind of depth and breadth and command that comes from his posture, his presence, lends credibility to the miser role. I wasn't that wild and crazy about the whole tornado effects sequence where The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge on a ride to a lighthouse, German ship at sea, and to nephew's party the miser was offered to attend, but there are instances like this in practically every Christmas Carol movie, I guess, that kind of annoy me. I think, inevitably, each and every Christmas Carol version is tested against the Alistair Sim Scrooge movie, his is the epitome of what the Dickens character is visualized as correct and authentic. This version has a moment that tickles my funnybone a bit: Scrooge visits his death bed, his body wrapped in a death shroud, and he asks the reaper-looking "Ghost of Christmas That is Yet to Come" if no one would find comfort in his demise and the spirit shows him of a poor couple owing a debt to him benefiting from the fact that they will have time, now that their moneylender kicked the bucket, to pay back the loan! Anyway, this version has the obligatory scenes we are accustomed to: the visit to his old school, to Fessiwigs when he was an apprentice, to the Christmas dinner of Bob Cratchet, to see his Nephew Fred's gathering of good friends, to the trader who lives in a paupers' area in an impoverished street corner somewhere deep in the bowels of an unflattering London, and ultimately to his grave. I think this fails in Scrooge's resurrection, his rebirth, Stewart seems more at home as the miser slowly becoming aware of his failures as a human being, while the reemergence after facing a possible death in full delight seems forced and strained for optimum effect, feeling less authentic which is what endears us to Sim and George C Scott in the revered '51 and '84 versions of The Christmas Carol. And, a gauge on how impactful this version is thrives on how the Tiny Tim storyline packs its punch. In this version, it never quite plays a melody with my heartstrings. I am not sure if it's the casting or what, but I never quite get that emotional wallop with Richard Harris' Cratchet, his wife, or the Tiny Tim of this Christmas Carol compared to others. David Warner's Cratchet, to me, is the definitive Bob Cratchet, his lot in life, the difficulties plaguing his character are present in his demeanor and voice, his weary face explicitly shows the years toiling with Scrooge and his little boy's illness. I sympathize with him wholeheartedly while Harris never, for some reason, quite captures my heart. Not sure why, it could just be me. I guess that really is how I feel about most of the casting, nothing extraordinary, workman-like is my best way to describe them. Mostly, I think Stewart does a commendable job, conveying the conflicting emotions, the good ones he once felt returning, with us seeing that Ebenezer is starting to sense where he went wrong as the bubbling-to-the-surface feelings before he molded into the miser bring an awareness that has him recognizing what he lost.

Nola6015 I tend to assume that most who view any version of this tale, have read the original at least once, hence it is my wont to write it in what is dubbed, "spoiler" mode; albeit I hardly find it much of a "spoil" in describing a story which is fairly universally known. To cite a perhaps overused phrase: the Devil is in the details! That said, of all the uncounted dozens, nay hundreds of adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" put to film, I have found this adaptation to be far and away the most faithful to Dickens. And yet, it does have its shortcomings:1.) It overcompensates for the perceived ignorant masses in changing dialog to a more modern vocabulary--a thing many may appreciate, but being a purist I find somewhat irksome. Examples include changing "situation" to "job"… "Walk-ER" to "You're Joshing!", "Half a crown" to "two shillings," and "Blind Man's Buff," to "Bluff" among several others. Okay, okay... you might think these picky in the extreme; and so be it. I want a story related as told by the author; I expect it to be as written. If they truly want to put it in a modern lexicon, why not simply accept any of the modern adaptations that have done just that... like "Scrooged" with Bill Murray? --and have done with it! 2.) By far the most egregious shortcoming in your humble writer's opinion is the silly need to change the name of Fan, to Fran. Say what? Why alter a perfectly legitimate name, and the one the author of the story designated for Scrooge's beloved sister? They also depict Scrooge's niece's sister, (the "plump" one) whom Topper pursues, as anything but "plump"... she looks downright anorexic. 3.) I do wish they'd have given us a short scene from the past: where Scrooge can lament what he lost in Belle's love, as she is depicted in the story with all her happy children and the husband Scrooge might have been! 4.) The movie begins with Marley's funeral, an oversight I can forgive as it nevertheless allows for a reference to his being "dead as a doornail" and delightfully from the text a reference to the "deadest piece of ironmongery"...the scene is brief, quickly shifting to the opening scene of the storyline.5.) Those beads of light for eyes in the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come really need to go. They might add a more creepy phantom; but detract from the mystery as related in the novel by lines suggesting all Scrooge could detect behind that hood was a darkness in which he could "sense" those eyes! So Why a 9/10 with all these "shortcomings"? Quite simply because they are trivial, in light of all of the positives:1.) Most of the dialog is recognizably straight from the text .2.) Unlike many versions that have this irrepressible compulsion to impose at least one female spirit, this one remains true in that both past and present are decidedly male, which makes sense since even in the ridiculous versions changing the past to a female, the very next "spirit" refers to all of his predecessors as his 1800 plus "brothers"... nary a sister in the lot. Additionally Joel Grey truly does resemble the diminutive spirit who looks both old, and young --the only thing missing was all the morphing which no version I know of depicts. 3.) Its faithful presentation of the spirits continues as we see the spirit of Christmas Present age as his time draws to a close, another thing so far as I know, found in no other version. His remonstrance of Scrooge's "wicked cant" is line-for-line from the story. 4.) We get to laugh at Topper's thinly veiled (pun intended) pursuit of the not-so-plump sister playing at blind man's buff, and while Fred's house could hardly be described as looking "poor enough", the scenes of fun follow the story well. 5.) Even though we do not get to see the horse-drawn hearse ascending the stairway, we do note the fireplace is exactly as described in the book, with the biblical scenes, and in many of them the face of Marley (from that door-knocker) returns to haunt Scrooge. Pity he had to refer to an underdone "turnip" when the text clearly states potato, but how satisfying it was to note that, exactly as in the book, Marley's jaw drops literally to his breast upon unwrapping, and how it "snaps shut" upon its being re-wrapped. The spirits outside, also, true to those described in the book, as bemoaning their inability to intercede, and fettered to items such as safes, and money-boxes. 6.) Fan is actually a little girl, and not a practically grown woman, and very much rekindles the mind's-eye view of this little angel's excitement when she tells an actual boy (not a grown man) that "father is so much nicer now"... again, fidelity is the driving positive force. 7.) The scenes of Scrooge's transformation include his actually going "to church"...something from the book which I failed to note in every other cinematic effort. He sings, he plots and schemes to ambuscade Cratchit the next day, and the closing narration is literally from the final paragraph in the original text. While some concessions must be made, the scenes, and depictions of this version, impel me to give it the highest rating of any version I have seen. One can truthfully revisit their mind's creations upon having read the story! Perhaps Scott is a better Scrooge, (But Stewart is good!) and the nephew from either the 1951 or the 1938 version better representatives of those characters, the sum total of this version, make it far and away the very best a Dickens purist can hope to possess, given the current choices. At least in this Dickens fan's humble opinion.