A Christmas Carol (2009)

A Christmas Carol is a 2009 Motion capture animated movie produced by ImageMovers Digital and Distributed by Disney. It was Disney's third A Christmas Carol adaptation after Mickey Mouse's Christmas Carol and The Muppets Christmas Carol.

Plot
Though London awaits the joyful arrival of Christmas, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) thinks it's all humbug, berating his faithful clerk and cheerful nephew for their view. Later, Scrooge encounters the ghost of his late business partner, who warns that three spirits will visit him this night. The ghosts take Scrooge on a journey through his past, present and future in the hope of transforming his bitterness.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It stays faithful to the original story.
 * 2) Absolutely breathtaking and incredibly realistic-looking motion capture computer-animation, which can be comparable to some current-generation video games such as mh:awesomegames:Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, mh:awesomegames:God of War (2018), The Last of Us: Part II and mh:awesomegames:Red Dead Redemption 2.
 * 3) Great visuals.
 * 4) The scene where Scrooge travels through his past is very atmospheric.
 * 5) Great voice acting, especially from Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman.
 * 6) Great and likable characters such as Ebenezer Scrooge (but not at the start of the movie), Bob Cratchit, Fred Scrooge, Jacob Marley, The Ghost of Christmas Past, The Ghost of Christmas Present, and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
 * 7) Proper character development.
 * 8) Great soundtrack.
 * 9) It's great to see Jim Carrey play various characters.
 * 10) Marley's ghost design looks very nice.
 * 11) Nice sense of humor.
 * 12) Good twists and turns.
 * 13) The writing is great.
 * 14) The character designs are nice, but sometimes they can look creepy.
 * 15) The ending is nice.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The animation can look creepy and awkward at times.
 * 2) Its dark tone doesn't fit to the movie at all, considering it's a family movie, though this can be intentional in order to match the original book's tone.
 * 3) Overuse of jumpscares.
 * 4) Not for the easily frightened.
 * 5) The Ghost of Christmas Present's death may be too scary for younger viewers.
 * 6) The story is a bit easy to predict.
 * 7) Scrooge is really unlikable at the start, until at the middle of the movie. (though he was probably meant to be unlikable at first.)

Reception
A Christmas Carol received mostly mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and audiences, who praised its visuals, Alan Silvestri's musical score and the performances of Carrey and Oldman, but criticized its dark tone. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 52% based on 201 reviews and an average rating of 5.91/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Robert Zemeckis' 3-D animated take on the Dickens classic tries hard, but its dazzling special effects distract from an array of fine performances from Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman.". On Metacritic, the film had a score of 55 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four, calling it "an exhilarating visual experience".

Trivia

 * It is one of Disney’s only CGI animated films without Walt Disney Animation Studios or Pixar.