The Christmas Experiment 2014: Hours 9+10: Christmas Carol: The Movie

What's better than a Direct-to-video animated version of a Christmas Classic? Yeah, a toothache does sound better.

Viewing Thoughts: This is only the second time I've ever covered a version of this. It's one of the most popular Christmas Stories. I'm not going to bother a full synopsis, just the differences. Mice are all over this one and not talking mice. There's one at the doctor where Tiny Tim goes, Scrooge (who's a younger man in this one) has a mouse who he's nice to. There's a nurse at the Doctor's Office who might know Scrooge. Is this going to be one where Belle and Scrooge reunite and fall back in love? The Mice are also bickering so weird subplot there.

Let's talk about the voice cast. Someone must have had a lot of blackmail material because oh boy. Simon Callow is Scrooge, Kate Winslet as Belle, Nicholas Cage (!) as Bob Pratchett, and Michael Gambon as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Seriously, it's a pretty decent voice cast for a direct-to-dvd affair. That said, some of the child actors are just truly terrible. Like, look, I know kids aren't the best actors but when you're speaking your native tongue and it sounds like you're an American doing a bad accent, you got problems. Back to the main cast, there is apparently a version that is framed with Callow as Charles Dickens reading the story. A few years later, he would plays Dickens on Doctor Who so there you go. For that matter, Gambon would play a Scrooge figure on Who as well.

The animation is nothing to write home about. There are moments of competence. The mice look like real mice unlike the other cartoon mice we've seen today. Marley looks creepy as all hell. I mean, seriously, he could not look creepier. In fact, all the ghosts look great. The Ghost of Christmas Past occasionally does this thing where she shifts between old and young. It's a nice little touch. The Ghost of Christmas Future appears as part of the background almost. It's one of the few moments I would call the animation beautiful and I love hand-drawn animation usually. Really, anything involving the ghosts and the fantastical is pretty awesome. It's everything else that's kinda meh.

A subplot in this film has various people ending up in the debtor's prison because Scrooge left his books with some evil guy. It also goes a little bit further into the reasoning with Fred, Scrooge's nephew. His mother died giving birth to him. It's as an interesting choice as giving Belle a more prominent role. Another choice is that Tiny Tim's sickness is directly the fault of Scrooge who threw a bucket of cold water on him.

As for the rest, yeah, they end up back together, Scrooge and Belle. Also, Scrooge doesn't completely change. He as a few moments of being Old Scrooge. It's a nice touch. Overall, this is unrelenting in it's averageness. I won't say it's bad but it's not great and every good choice had an equal boring one. At least there's only one crap song and it's a background song. This is good since one of the Credits songs sounds like it was supposed to be in the film. I don't think I could take another crappy song and dance number. It's mostly a wasted potential but oh well, could be worse. There are much worse adaptations out there.

Non-Viewing Thoughts: Since the transition over to digital signals, I have become enchanted with the idea of Multiplexing channels. This is when you, say, get your standard Channel 45 along with a 45.2 that might be MeTV or something like that. It gives you variety for cable cutting while still getting to be cheap. Plus, 60s Batman on weekends.

Late Christmas Ideas: I wouldn't mind a decent coffee pot. I barely drink coffee but I could live with trying it more with a coffee pot. That and I still love the smell.

Notable Commercials:  The Fox affiliate is doing these weird Holiday Greetings from their stars that are intercut with scenes from their shows. For example, guy from Sleepy Hallow says he loves stuffing. Cut to a baby trying to literally burst from a woman's stomach.

Tally:
Mountain Dews left: 6
Amps left: 2
Coffee Drank: 1 Bottle
Pumpkin Pie Left: 5/6ths Left
Sanity Rating: (1 being an olympic runner, 10 being Tiny Tim in a foot race): 3